The UK government has been failing to meet its commitments to fund nature protection in the developing world, and will need to double current spending to meet the targets, new data has shown.
Underspending on overseas climate aid by the previous Conservative government has meant spending averaged £450m a year for the three full years since 2021 – less than half the £3bn that was pledged for nature projects in poor countries.
Labour now faces tough choices over the spending. Carbon Brief, which obtained the data from freedom of information requests to the government, calculates that more than £800m will now need to be spent in each of the next two years if the target is to be met.
Boris Johnson pledged, at the Cop26 summit in Glasgow in 2021, to spend £11.6bn on climate finance for developing countries by 2026. Of this, £3bn was earmarked for nature projects, and half of that was supposed to go to forest projects.
Labour will face tough questions from developing countries over the funding, at two forthcoming international summits: one on biodiversity, called Cop16, in Colombia next month, and at the UN climate summit, Cop29, in Azerbaijan in November.
Clement Metivier, head of international advocacy at WWF-UK, said: “Finance will be centre stage at the upcoming nature and climate Cops. The UK government cannot go empty-handed to those negotiations, which is why WWF is calling on the UK to uphold its past financial promises. Delivering the £11.6bn for climate finance and within that the £3bn for nature is vital to rebuild trust with countries and communities most impacted by the ongoing climate and nature crises.”
Ed Miliband, the energy and net zero secretary, reaffirmed the headline pledge this summer, when he invited Mukhtar Babayev, the Azerbaijan minister, who will be president of Cop29, to London in July. However, all government spending is subject to the comprehensive overhaul of budgets the Treasury is conducting, as part of the autumn budget.
Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, is keeping a tight rein on all departmental spending, and some will face cuts. However, a trio of cabinet ministers – Miliband, foreign secretary David Lammy and environment secretary Steve Reed – have recently vowed to put the UK at centre stage of global climate and nature talks. This effort would be damaged if the UK were to be seen to renege on its longstanding commitments, even if they were made by a previous government which itself failed to keep them.
The findings on the funding shortfall come as Lammy and Reed are preparing to appoint a new nature envoy for the first time, to join climate expert Rachel Kyte, revealed by the Guardian this week as the new climate envoy.
Both envoys will be expected to forge alliances with developing countries at international climate and nature talks.
Lord Goldsmith, the former minister under Boris Johnson who resigned in 2023, more than six months into Rishi Sunak’s premiership, was one of the architects of the £3bn pledge. He told the Guardian the commitment should be honoured, to keep faith with developing countries.
He said: “The UK has historically played a significant leadership role in global nature diplomacy. However, we are falling short in meeting our agreed financial obligations which will help protect the ecosystems we all rely on. In a country where the environment consistently ranks among our top five concerns, our performance is falling far short.”
He added: “There is no cause more important or urgent than reconciling ourselves to the natural world we depend on for everything. It’s imperative that we match our diplomatic efforts and successes with serious investment alongside other governments.”
A Foreign Office spokesperson said: “The climate and nature emergency is a central geopolitical challenge of our age. Tackling the scale of the threat is necessary to achieve clean and secure energy, lower bills and drive growth for the UK, and to preserve the natural world around us. We have already begun to turn this ambition into action. The climate and nature crisis will be central to all that the Foreign Office does.”