Asked by: Sarah Jones (Labour - Croydon West)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, whether it is her policy to recognise the importance of loss and damage finance as a pillar of wider climate finance; and what plans her Department has to increase the international availability of such funds.
Answered by Vicky Ford
The UK provided £9.8 billion of International Climate Finance (ICF) between 2011/12 and 2020/21, and we are committed to providing a further £11.6 billion between 2021/22 and 2025/26 (a doubling of our ICF spend in the previous five years), with an extra £1 billion in 2025 if the economy grows as forecast. Between 2016 and 2019, the UK spent £2 billion of ICF on adaptation and investments in areas needed to address loss and damage directly linked to climate change, including over £200 million on humanitarian assistance, £283 million on social protection and £115 million on financial protection and risk management.
In addition, we are using our COP Presidency to drive greater action on adaptation and loss and damage having given these issues more prominence at COP26 than at any other COP, including by hosting a Presidency event on Loss and Damage. We are delighted that this COP recognised the need for money to be provided to tackle loss and damage through existing sources, agreed the functions and funding arrangements for the Santiago Network and founded the Glasgow Dialogue, where Parties, civil society and technicians will come together to discuss how to increase the funds applied to loss and damage and how Parties in need can access these funds.