Public Letter to the Prime Minister from 71 Organisations on Climate Change

Posted on: Tuesday, September 24th, 2024

On 20 September, CBM UK along with 70 other international development organisations, faith groups and environmental non-profits called on the prime minister to ramp up the UK’s action on the climate crisis ahead of upcoming climate negotiations at the UN General Assembly.

Dear Prime Minister,

As 71 UK civil society and faith organisations, from large international development and environment charities to local groups from across the four nations, we welcome your government’s mission to “create a world free from poverty on a liveable planet” and commitment to be a climate leader. The existential threat we all face from climate change can only be tackled with global cooperation, which is why the UN General Assembly (UNGA) next week and COP29 in November will be crucial first tests of that leadership.

As the fifth largest historical emitter and sixth largest economy, the UK has both the responsibility and the capability to take far greater action on climate change – at home and overseas. Leading on international climate action requires clear and ambitious commitments that restore trust, leading by example domestically, and contributing to fair financing of climate action globally; these are the benchmarks against which your government will be judged.

At COP29 in Azerbaijan, an ambitious, fair, and needs-based new collective quantified goal (NCQG) for climate finance for developing countries must be agreed. But negotiations are dangerously off course, and failure to deliver on finance would unravel decades of global cooperation to tackle climate change. High-level political leadership is urgently required by you and other World Leaders at UNGA to chart a course that delivers a justice-based outcome.

Currently it is communities and countries that are the least responsible for causing the climate emergency that are paying with their lives, livelihoods, homes, lands, ecosystems, and futures. An unbearable injustice. The economic burden is stark, with climate change costing African nations up to 5% of GDP¹, and Small Island Developing States like Vanuatu over 35% GDP annually and more in higher impact years². It is simply not fair.

The UK has not been paying its fair share. The previous government cut Official Development Assistance (ODA) from 0.7 to 0.5% of GNI and double counted ODA as climate finance. It failed to implement reasonable measures to make polluters and the wealthiest in our society pay to generate much needed additional public finance for climate action, despite Oxfam estimates that up to £23bn could have been raised in 2022 this way without unfairly costing UK households³.

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 have always been additional to pre-existing ODA commitments.

Increased ambition on international climate finance (ICF) plays a critical role in preventing further climate breakdown, driving action for communities who are bearing the brunt of the greatest impacts, while also avoiding greater global instability and losses including threats to critical supply chains for industries and communities in the UK.

Increasing ambition on international climate finance must go hand-in-hand with increasing ambition on domestic action. Successive UK Prime Ministers have stood on podiums and declared the UK a climate leader and urged other countries to do more, while the UK has continued to fail to do its fair share. With the world off course to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C, every possible action is now urgent, and a step-change in ambition and implementation in the UK’s 2035 Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) would catalyse greater global action, strengthen multilateralism, and build trust.

At UNGA and COP29, we urge you to concretely demonstrate new action and leadership from the UK to raise the bar globally on ambition and implementation. We call on you to:

Return UK ODA commitments to 0.7% and reverse last year’s ICF accounting changes to rebuild the UK’s reputation as a trusted partner that fulfils its international promises.
Champion an NCQG that centres the needs and priorities of affected countries and communities, and delivers the scale of public finance needed.
Commit to providing future UK ICF that is genuinely new and additional by putting in place polluter pays measures to generate new public finance in a fair way.
Raise ambition with a UK 2035 NDC that sets a new global benchmark commensurate with the UK’s responsibilities and the urgency to keep 1.5°C alive, by going well beyond the existing sixth carbon budget and incorporating your government’s new ambitions and plans for UK climate leadership, restoring and protecting nature, and becoming a clean energy superpower.

As the Labour manifesto states, “the climate and nature crisis is the greatest long-term global challenge that we face,” and we urge you to take bold action at UNGA, COP29, and beyond to address the urgency and scale of this challenge at home and internationally.

Yours sincerely,

Catherine Pettengell.

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

On behalf of the following UK civil society organisations:

XR Cardigan

Action Against Hunger UK

ActionAid UK

Age International

Awel Amen Tawe

Bond

Cardiff Quakers

CAFOD