“Keep the promise” – over 90 civil society groups write to Rishi Sunak on climate finance

7 July 2023

Ninety-two UK civil society organisations from environment, international development, education, trade union, disability inclusion, trade, humanitarian, business, and faith groups have written to the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak today to demand that he keeps his promise on climate finance.

The full text of the letter to the Prime Minister reads:

Dear Prime Minister,

Successive UK Prime Ministers, including yourself, have stood on podium after podium and declared the UK a global leader on climate action – promising net zero by 2050 and £11.6bn in climate finance over five years from 2021 – and urging other countries to do more to address this global crisis.

The existential threat we all face due to climate change can only be tackled with global cooperation – and progress that we all benefit from can only be achieved when there is trust that promises made will be kept.  

At COP27 in Egypt in November, you stood up and said “it is morally right to honour our promises, but it is also economically right too” – and we wholeheartedly agreed. Yet last week the Climate Change Committee revealed that the UK is off course to deliver its promised emissions reductions, and now it is reported that your government may break its promise on climate finance too.

As 92 UK civil society organisations working across environment, international development, humanitarian response, education, inclusion and rights issues, we are writing to urge you to keep your promise to communities on the frontline of the climate crisis to provide £11.6bn in climate finance over five years between April 2021 and March 2026, and to urgently demonstrate how this commitment will be met.

Climate finance is a vital component of the Paris Agreement, without which limiting the rise in global temperature to 1.5°C will not be possible; without which the devastation of climate change will cost countless lives and livelihoods around the world for those least responsible for causing the climate crisis and cause irreversible damage to the ecosystems on which they depend; and without which meaningful international cooperation on climate action would collapse.

The world cannot afford such tragedies from short-sighted decisions.

While fossil fuel companies in the UK enjoy record-breaking profits, it is impossible for the world to comprehend claims from this government that the UK cannot afford more than 0.5% of gross national income to contribute towards global efforts to address poverty, nature degradation and loss, and climate change. This government has chosen to cut Official Development Assistance (ODA) while at the same time drawing on it for climate finance, which civil society has repeatedly warned is both unsustainable and unjust. This double counting puts climate finance in direct competition with other vital non-climate ODA priorities and is not in the spirit of the UN agreement to provide new and additional climate finance to countries least responsible for causing the climate crisis.

Climate finance is not a handout, but a debt we owe to countries and communities that have been made vulnerable to climate change, while the UK has benefited from burning fossil fuels. We have a historical responsibility to address the harm caused and to play a leading role in financing a global just and equitable transition away from fossil fuels and towards resilience. This is not aid and climate finance should not have come from the ODA budget in the first place. It is also in the UK’s enlightened self interest to prevent further climate breakdown.

The UK’s credibility on the global stage now hangs in the balance, and we urge you to demonstrate how the £11.6bn will be met and live up to your own words from COP27:

“By honouring the promises we made in Glasgow and by directing public and private finance towards the protection of our planet, we can turn our struggle against climate change into a global mission for new jobs and clean growth and we can bequeath our children a greener planet and a more prosperous future. That’s a legacy we could be proud of.”

Yours sincerely,

Catherine Pettengell

Executive Director, Climate Action Network UK (CAN-UK)

The full list of 92 organisations signed-on to this letter is below: 

1. Action Against Hunger
2. ActionAid UK
3. Action For Humanity
4. Awel Aman Tawe
5. Bond
6. BRAC UK
7. Bretton Woods Project
8. CAFOD
9. CARE International UK
10. CBM UK
11. Cardiff Quakers
12. Christian Aid
13. Climate Action Network UK
14. Climate Cymru
15. Climate Group
16. Climate Outreach
17. Climate Shop
18. Clynfyw Care Farm
19. Community Energy Scotland
20. Concern Worldwide UK
21. Co-production Network for Wales
22. Debt Justice
23. Development Initiatives
24. Egni Cooperative
25. Environmental Justice Foundation
26. Environmental Investigation Agency
27. Fairtrade Foundation
28. Fair Trade Wales
29. Faith for the Climate
30. Fauna & Flora
31. Fern
32. Ffynnone Community Resilience
33. Friends of the Earth
34. Global Action Plan
35. Global Citizen
36. Global Justice Now
37. Global Witness
38. Green Economy Coalition
39. Greenpeace
40. Green Squirrel 
41. Humanity & Inclusion UK
42. Institute of Development Studies
43. International Alert
44. International Institute for Environment and Development
45. Islamic Relief UK
46. Keep Scotland Beautiful
47. Labour Behind the Label
48. Link Education
49. Make My Money Matter
50. Mercy Corps
51. Mighty Earth
52. ONE
53. Oxfam GB
54. Plan UK
55. Pontypridd Land Society
56. Possible
57. Practical Action
58. Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church, the Most Revd Mark Strange
59. Quakers in Britain
60. Railway Children
61. Rainforest Foundation UK
62. Ribble Valley CAN
63. RSPB
64. Save the Children
65. SCIAF
66. Scotland’s International Development Alliance
67. Scottish Communities Climate Action Network
68. Stamp Out Poverty
69. Stop Climate Chaos Cymru
70. Stop Climate Chaos Scotland
71. Sustainable Wales
72. Tearfund
73. The Climate Coalition
74. The Mentor Ring
75. The One Planet Centre
76. The WI
77. Tir Natur
78. Transform Trade
79. Tree Aid
80. UNICEF UK
81. UNISON
82. Uplift
83. WaterAid
84. Water Witness
85. WCS
86. Welsh Centre for International Affairs
87. Whale and Dolphin Conservation
88. World Vision UK
89. WWF-UK
90. Zero Hour
91. ZSL
92. 350.org