Rishi Sunak commits uplift in UK’s climate funding at G20

London: Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has committed to contribute around USD 2 billion to the Green Climate Fund (GCF) to help the world’s most vulnerable adapt to and mitigate the impact of climate change, Downing Street said on Sunday in an update from the G20 Summit in New Delhi.

The GCF was established by 194 countries following the Copenhagen Accord at COP15 and is the largest global fund dedicated to supporting developing countries to reduce global emissions and helping communities adapt to the effects of climate change.

Sunak's pledge represents a 12.7 per cent increase on the UK’s previous contribution to the GCF for the period of 2020-2023, which was a doubling of the initial funding to establish the fund in 2014, Downing Street said.

“The UK is stepping up and delivering on our climate commitments, both by decarbonising our own economy and supporting the world’s most vulnerable to deal with the impact of climate change,” Sunak said in a statement on the final day of the India-led G20 Summit.

“This is the kind of leadership that the world rightly expects from G20 countries. And this government will continue to lead by example in making the UK, and the world, more prosperous and secure,” he said.

According to the Downing Street update from the summit in New Delhi, Sunak called on world leaders to work together ahead of the COP28 Summit this December to both reduce their countries’ own carbon emissions and support vulnerable economies to deal with the consequences of climate change.

Alongside this uplift in the UK’s contribution to the GCF, the UK government said it will continue to stress the importance of the GCF delivering results with even greater speed, demonstrating value for money in all of its activities.

This includes asking the GCF to further improve its delivery for those countries most vulnerable to climate change, particularly Least Developed Countries and Small Island Developing States.

India has repeatedly called on the developed world to step up to its commitments to assist the developing world in meeting the challenges posed by the climate crisis.

The UK claims to be leading international efforts to help developing countries tackle climate change, including by pledging to spend GBP 11.6 billion on international climate finance between 2021 and 2026.