Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
We come to the second Select Committee statement, on behalf of the International Development Committee. Sarah Champion will speak for up to 10 minutes, during which there will be no interventions. At the conclusion of her statement, Members may ask questions on the subject of the statement.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
Climate change is not a distant threat; it is already reshaping lives and livelihoods around the world. The Earth is warming, and rainfall patterns are becoming increasingly unpredictable. Sea levels are rising, and extreme weather events are now more frequent and more severe. The impacts of climate change are being felt more than ever, both at home in the UK and, even more acutely, in the world’s poorest and most climate-vulnerable countries.
Climate change is often discussed in terms of emission targets, financial commitments and international agreements, but behind these debates there is a humanitarian crisis unfolding—a crisis of homes destroyed, crops failing, livelihoods lost and communities struggling to rebuild in the wake of disasters that they did little to cause. We witnessed such a reality most recently in Nepal. In a matter of hours, devastating floods washed away entire cities, leaving thousands of people dead or missing, and forcing many more to face an uncertain future, in a country where a quarter of the population already live in poverty. But Nepal is not an isolated case, and with a “super El Niño” in prospect, such disasters are set to become the norm, if countries are unable to mitigate and adapt to climate change.
It is against this backdrop that the International Development Committee has published its report examining the UK’s international climate finance commitments. Our inquiry focused on three overarching themes. First, the Government’s successive reductions to official development assistance have made it difficult to deliver on their climate finance commitments to lower and middle-income countries in a transparent, meaningful and credible way. Frustratingly, rather than striving to deliver genuine climate and nature outcomes, the Government have been cutting corners to maintain headline spending commitments, and this is impacting on our international credibility.
Our report highlights that the Government have also substantially reduced the ODA portion of the UK’s climate finance commitment for the next three years. This comes at a time when climate finance needs are growing and sustained international leadership is more important than ever. To that end, I welcome the new Foreign Secretary, who, I would argue, is uniquely qualified to meet this challenge, but let me be clear: it is an enormous challenge. Recent policy shifts in the US, alongside signalling from major multilateral institutions that they may scale back or abandon climate finance targets, have created an increasingly uncertain landscape for climate action. In that context, the case for strong and consistent UK leadership has never been clearer.
Secondly, UK climate finance is not simply about how much money is spent; it is about who can access it, who benefits from it and who has a voice in how it is used. In a period of constrained public finances, the quality, accessibility and effectiveness of the UK’s climate finance is vital. Throughout our inquiry, we repeatedly heard that climate finance is most effective when local organisations, communities and sub-national Governments can access high-quality funding directly and play a meaningful role in designing and delivering climate solutions.
We also heard compelling evidence about the importance of inclusion. For example, women and girls disproportionately bear the brunt of climate impacts yet receive less than 1% of climate finance globally. However, women and girls are often agents of change in their communities, and are capable of driving long-lasting climate outcomes. It is clear that, too often, those most affected by climate challenges face the greatest barriers to accessing the UK’s climate finance. That is why the Committee’s report argues that the UK’s climate finance—regardless of whether it is delivered through its own programmes, multilateral institutions or partners—must be more accessible, inclusive and responsive to the needs and priorities of the most climate-vulnerable countries.
Thirdly, we considered the Government’s evolving approach to mobilising private finance for climate adaptation and mitigation. We recognise that, in a resource-constrained environment, the Government are increasingly seeking to mobilise private capital to help them meet their climate finance obligations. We acknowledge that the pathway to addressing climate change must include the private sector. However, our Government have a critical role in creating an enabling environment that allows finance to flow to where it is needed most. That means using the UK’s development finance institutions, guarantees, partnerships and diplomatic influence strategically to reduce risk, strengthen local capacity, support investable projects, and direct investments towards climate and nature outcomes.
However, the shift from donor to investor must not come at the expense of poverty reduction. Public climate finance has a unique role to play in supporting the poorest and most climate-vulnerable countries—particularly those to which private finance investment is least likely to go. The Government must therefore ensure that their efforts to mobilise private finance complement, rather than replace, grant-based solutions, so that we can support those communities that need it most.
Let me be blunt: climate change threatens to reverse decades of hard-won progress towards meeting the sustainable development goals. That not only risks perpetuating a vicious cycle of poverty, instability and humanitarian need in the most climate-vulnerable countries, but will have downstream implications for the UK’s prosperity and security. The question facing the Government is not simply how much climate finance can be provided; the real test is whether the UK can demonstrate that every pound spent delivers genuine climate and nature outcomes. That means being more transparent, focusing on evidence, targeting our limited ODA climate finance where it is needed most, and ensuring that it strengthens, rather than undermines, broader development objectives.
The Committee’s report should serve as a reminder that climate finance should not be treated as an optional extra to ODA. It should not be reprioritised or repurposed in the face of competing priorities; rather, it should be treated as an essential part of how the UK meets its global responsibilities under the Paris agreement and meaningfully contributes to tackling the defining challenge of our times.
Monica Harding (Esher and Walton) (LD)
I thank the Chair of the International Development Committee for giving a very powerful speech. As she pointed out, Nepal was hit by another flood yesterday, after 1,400 people were killed by those earlier in the year. These extreme weather events are having a huge impact on biodiversity, and I urge every Member to read the Government’s national security assessment of global biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse. There is a threat to our national security, and the challenges can be met only if public money is available. That means a return to spending 0.7% of GDP on ODA. Does the hon. Lady think that is important, and how does public funding marry with the private investment that she talks of?
Sarah Champion
I thank my fellow Committee member for her question. She well knows that in some of the places we visit, farmers have not been able to plant crops for years. Those are areas that we expect the food in our supermarkets to come from. Unless we recognise this as an international catastrophe with which we are all connected, we will never get to the resolution that we need.
Dr Sam Rushworth (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
It is true, as we know, that those bearing the brunt of climate disasters are those least responsible for causing them. The reality is that the cuts being implemented—not just by this Government, but by all Governments—risk global food insecurity and increased poverty, conflict, and refugee and migration flows. I have previously called for the Government to properly assess the impact of this, and to publish it so that we, as British taxpayers, can understand what those impacts are. Would my hon. Friend join me in that call?
Sarah Champion
I thank my hon. Friend and Committee member, who has consistently made this argument. The Government need to give us that transparency so that we can see what does and does not work, and then replicate that on a global scale. Without that clear information being presented to this House, it becomes impossible to see the impact we are having.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
First, I thank the Chair of the Committee for her statement and all the Committee members for their work. I do not care what anybody says: none of us can ignore the fact that the ice caps are melting, the rainforests have been decimated, bird and animal life across the world has been reduced dramatically, and fires, floods and pestilence—to use a biblical term—seem to be everyday occurrences.
In particular, the hon. Lady mentioned women and girls, and I wish to focus on and ask her a question about them. I think it is really important that they have the chance to thrive, to be educated and to have the health they should have, and then that they have the opportunity to find a job. What more can our Government do to ensure that women and girls across the world have a chance to thrive?
Sarah Champion
The hon. Member makes a powerful point, which I have heard him make for decades, about trying to support women and girls to flourish wherever they find themselves. I would say that the most straightforward thing the Government could do right now is to publish the data about who the money goes to and how it impacts positively on their lives. The Committee has been calling for that for as long as I have chaired it, and I think the Government really need to act on it.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I thank both Select Committee Chairs for their statements.