All hot air: UK commits to climate action but not to new funding
Source: The Observer
All hot air: UK commits to climate action but not to new funding
Boris Johnson announces £500m for ‘blue planet fund’, but pledge was contained in 2019 Conservative manifesto
Fiona Harvey & Toby Helm
Sat 12 Jun 2021 22.31 BST
Boris Johnson has set out his intention to “build back better for the world”, to protect the natural environment and wildlife, and tackle the climate crisis, at the G7 summit in Cornwall. But he committed no new funds to the initiative, and other G7 leaders showed little sign of coming forward with the cash commitments that campaigners said were needed to help developing countries cope with the climate emergency.
Announcing £500m to be spent on a “blue planet fund”, for the protection of the oceans and coastal areas in poor countries, he said: “As democratic nations, we have a responsibility to help developing countries reap the benefits of clean growth through a fair and transparent system. The G7 has an unprecedented opportunity to drive a global green industrial revolution, with the potential to transform the way we live.
Sir David Attenborough, the naturalist, told the G7 leaders: “The natural world today is greatly diminished. Our planet is warming fast … The decisions we make this decade – in particular the decisions made by the most economically advanced nations – are the most important in human history.”
However, a £500m commitment is not new money, but was contained in the Conservative manifesto in 2019, and will come from the £11.6bn in climate finance that the UK has already agreed to spend over the next five years helping developing countries.
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/12/all-hot-air-uk-commits-to-climate-action-but-not-to-new-funding
