Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assistance they are providing to (1) Tuvalu, (2) Vanuatu, and (3) the Bahamas, to combat the effects of climate change.

The UK is committed to building global consensus to support Small Island Developing States (SIDS), including Tuvalu, Vanuatu and the Bahamas, to address their unique vulnerabilities to climate change and build resilient green economies of the future. The UK led a High-Level Roundtable on SIDS Access to Finance and a call to action for global reform which brought together SIDS, development partners (donors) and international organisations. The Minister for Europe and the Americas set out the UK’s belief that the current development finance system is not working for SIDS.

At COP26 the UK amplified the voice of small islands and highlighted the need for drastic action to keep global temperature rises below 1.5^oC. The UK Presidency prioritised pushing developed countries to address SIDS’ concerns about climate finance: scale of finance, finance for adaptation, access to finance and action to avert, minimise and address loss and damage as a result of climate change. The UK also announced a new £40m ‘Small Island Developing State Capacity and Resilience’ (SIDAR) programme, which will support capacity-building for small island states to better access funding and to build state resilience. This is in addition to a further £7m to support resilient infrastructure for SIDS.