The UK plans to spend "around £6bn" ($8bn) of its overseas development aid (ODA) budget as international climate finance over the next three years, the government said today.
This will cover mitigation and adaptation — referring to cutting emissions and adjusting to the effects of climate change where possible, respectively. The finance will also have "a focus on nature", the government said.
The budget covers the 2026-7 to 2028-9 financial years. The UK previously committed to spending £11.6bn in international climate finance between the 2021-2 and 2025-6 financial years.
Although today's announcement represents a reduction in climate finance, it has been prioritised in the overall aid budget.
But "vulnerable communities on the frontline of the climate change crisis are relying on us", UK member of parliament Toby Perkins said today. Perkins is chair of the cross-party Environmental Audit Committee.
"Government support for climate finance enhances business confidence, encourages investment and signals that we are willing to lead in the long term", Perkins said.
The government aims to deliver an additional £6.7bn in "UK-backed climate and nature investments" and to mobilise "billions" in private finance, it said today. It will also "support and help reform international institutions to unlock greater finance for development", including from multilateral development banks (MDBs).
Countries often call on MDBs to do more to fund actions to address climate change, as the institutions have significant leveraging power. The World Bank's International Development Association "unlocks £4 of additional finance" for each £1 invested, the UK government noted.
Several key donors of international development aid — such as Germany, France and Sweden — have scaled back of announced cuts to funding in the last 18 months, which is likely to affect projects tackling climate change in developing nations. Governments and campaigners have shifted their focus to MDBs and the private sector, in lieu of public funding.
The government in February 2025 said that it would fund a rise in UK defence spending entirely through cuts to the country's aid budget from 2027. It plans to move ODA to the equivalent of 0.3pc of gross national income by 2027, though it has the "intention to return to 0.7pc when the fiscal circumstances allow", Cooper said today.
Developed countries agreed at the UN Cop 29 climate summit in 2024 to deliver "at least" $300bn/yr in climate finance to developing nations by 2035, to support the latter to decarbonise and implement their energy transitions.
