Asked by: Angus Brendan MacNeil (Independent - Na h-Eileanan an Iar)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, how many officials of her Department and non-departmental public bodies have the word trade in their job title.
Answered by Rory Stewart
DFID’s Trade for Development team contains 42 staff. Three elsewhere in DFID have trade in their job title. There are no staff with job titles including trade in DFID’s two non-departmental public bodies.
Asked by: Angus Brendan MacNeil (Independent - Na h-Eileanan an Iar)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps she plans to take to ensure progress on international climate change agreements relating to loss and damage at the upcoming COP22 UN Climate Change Summit.
Answered by Lord Wharton of Yarm
The COP22 UN Climate Change Summit will discuss a review of the Warsaw International Mechanism on Loss and Damage, which seeks to galvanise action to respond to the threat of loss and damage due to climate change. The UK will be pressing for a rapid conclusion of this review to enable the Executive Committee of the mechanism to continue its valuable work.
Asked by: Angus Brendan MacNeil (Independent - Na h-Eileanan an Iar)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps she plans to take to build resilience to climate change in developing countries through weather-indexed insurance at the Marrakech climate conference in November.
Answered by Rory Stewart
In December 2015, every G7 nation set out how they will meet a collective target to reach an additional 400 million people with risk insurance by 2020. The UK has led the way, making excellent progress in delivering on its pledges of support for Climate Risk Insurance in the past year including funding for African Risk Capacity (ARC) and Pacific Catastrophe Risk Assessment and Financing Initiative (PCRAFI). UK Ministers have been invited to participate in side events at COP to highlight progress with the G7’s InsuResilience climate risk insurance initiative and on ARC.
Currently, just 5% of losses from natural disasters in low-income countries are covered by insurance (against around 40% in developed countries), leaving millions with nothing to rebuild their lives after disaster strikes. UK initiatives give countries and people the tools they need to get themselves back on their feet, which is firmly in our national interest.
Asked by: Angus Brendan MacNeil (Independent - Na h-Eileanan an Iar)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, if she will make it her policy to increase binding commitments to protect the world's poorest from climate-related natural disasters and extreme weather at the Marrakech Climate Conference in November.
Answered by Lord Wharton of Yarm
Ahead of the Paris Summit on Climate Change in December 2015 the UK committed to increase its climate finance by at least 50%, and will provide at least £5.8 billion over the next five years to help protect those most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. The UK is also part of the G7 pledge to expand climate risk insurance to cover up to an additional 400 million people in vulnerable developing countries by 2020.
Asked by: Angus Brendan MacNeil (Independent - Na h-Eileanan an Iar)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, if she will increase climate risk insurance programmes to address loss and damage associated with the adverse effects of climate change on developing countries.
Answered by Rory Stewart
The UK is proud to be a global leader in disaster risk finance and insurance and we are committed to contributing to meeting the G7’s InsuResilience collective target (set out in the 2015 G7 Leaders Elmau declaration) of helping up to an additional 400 million people in the most vulnerable developing countries to gain access to climate risk insurance by 2020.