Climate Manifesto:
Policies to deliver action and justice

Deliver on UK climate finance commitments

The UK Government should fully deliver upon its global responsibilities on climate finance (2012-2025).

It should do so while ensuring it:

• Is fully additional to Official Development Assistance
• Is delivered as grants not loans (to avoid increasing the debt burden on nations)
• Achieves a balance between adaptation, mitigation and Loss and Damage finance
• Is targeted towards Least Development Countries (LDCs) and Small Island Development States (SIDS)
• Prioritises funding for local actors and gender-transformative solutions
• Is transparently reported.

Greater effort is needed to ensure climate finance reaches the countries and communities that need it most.

The UK Government should publish annual figures on its planned spending towards agreed climate finance commitments agreed in order to strengthen accountability, transparency and predictability. This will also help to build momentum towards the collective commitment to double funding for adaptation which was secured under the UK’s COP26 Presidency in Glasgow in 2021 and re-stated at COP27 in 2022 and COP28 in 2023. The UK also made a specific commitment to triple its adaptation funding by 2025.

Given that current climate finance commitment are so insufficient compared to the real needs of vulnerable countries, and are still not fully funded, the UK Government should also support the setting of a an ambitious needs-based New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) for climate finance at COP29 that has a significant and transparent public finance component for high-income countries, in line with their historic responsibility and capacity, and clear sub-goals for mitigation, adaptation, and loss and damage.

The UK has a significant historic responsibility for climate change, having led and financially benefited from the industrial revolution and the carbon-based economy. 

On Loss and Damage funding, at COP28 the UK pledged £60 million for the Loss and Damage Fund but this was not new money. It was taken from other commitments, and it is far short of the contribution needed by the UK Government based on historical emissions. 

The UK Government should show integrity and deliver on its obligations to climate-vulnerable communities by delivering the UK’s fair share of finance for climate mitigation and adaptation, and commit the UK to providing new and additional finance for loss and damage, including raising some of this by making polluters pay.

The $100 billion a year in promised climate finance, which does not include the additional finance needed to address L&D financing, was always an insufficient goal. However, coupled with action to address loss and damage, it remains critical to beginning to address the unfair suffering climate-vulnerable communities are facing.

Delivering public finance is one key step to leveraging the scale of finance needed; governments should also support the unlocking of innovative sources of finance, such as windfall taxes and multilateral development bank reform.

Climate solutions are being innovated by frontline communities, who are also the first responders to climate-related disasters. The UK Government should play a key role in funding locally-led initiatives and making sure climate finance reaches the communities most affected by climate change.

The UK Government should use its influence to help to secure a significantly increased climate finance goal for the period post-2025, ensuring this is needs-based and adaptable over time, responding to new evidence and emerging needs. The new goal must recognise the need for public grant-based finance where no returns on investment are required, particularly for adaptation and addressing loss and damage. The new goal must include sub-goals for mitigation, adaptation and addressing loss and damage. It should also explicitly recognise the special situation of Least-Developed Countries, Small Island Developing States and other highly climate-vulnerable contexts, including by prioritising them for grant-based and highly concessional finance.

In addition, the UK Government should restore the value of Official Development Assistance (ODA) to 0.7% of Gross National Income. The Scottish Government should try to influence the UK Government to meet and exceed the 0.7% target.

For further information:

• Key issues and priorities for COP29, SCCS, November 2024 https://www.stopclimatechaos.scot/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Stop-Climate-Chaos-Scotland-policy-paper_-Key-issues-and-priorities-for-COP29-.pdf
• The World Bank’s Evolution Roadmap will not deliver climate justice, Eurodad, June 2023, https://www.eurodad.org/world_bank_evolution_roadmap_climate_justice?utm_campaign=newsletter_1_06_2023&utm_medium=email&utm_source=eurodad 
• Climate Finance Shadow Report 2023, Oxfam, June 2023: https://policy-practice.oxfam.org/resources/climate-finance-shadow-report-2023-621500/ 
• Building back with justice – dismantling inequalities after Covid-19, Christian Aid, 2020, building-back-justice-covid19-report-jul2020_0.pdf (christianaid.org.uk) p.55