Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, how many staff in (a) his Department in the UK and (b) British Embassies and High Commissions overseas work on climate change-related diplomacy; and what projections he has made of the future staffing requirements for such work.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) currently has 20 staff who work full time in London on climate change. This includes the Foreign Secretary’s Special Representative on Climate Change. We have the full time equivalent of 70 staff dedicated to climate change and energy work across our overseas network. In addition, as climate and energy priorities demand, we have around a further 80 overseas staff who are also regularly engaged on climate diplomacy.

Climate change and energy/resource security remain high-level foreign policy priorities for the FCO and we keep resourcing arrangements under constant review.