The UK has beaten its target to provide £11.6bn of climate aid to developing countries by 2026 – but only through “questionable accounting”. 

As part of its obligations under the Paris Agreement, the UK pledged to give at least £11.6bn in overseas “climate finance” between 2021 and 2026.

Now, Carbon Brief analysis reveals that around £2.1bn of the funds the UK counted towards this goal did not come from new spending.

Instead, the government relabelled existing funding for development banks, private-sector investment and aid for Afghanistan, Sudan and other war-torn nations as “climate finance”.

Without these changes, the UK would have fallen nearly £1bn short of its target.

Carbon Brief’s analysis is based on numerous FOI requests and reveals the otherwise-unpublished details of the UK’s climate-finance spending.

Experts and MPs say the use of “questionable” accounting shows the UK is “cutting corners” to hit its climate goals, while making unprecedented cuts to its foreign aid budget. 

The UK and other developed countries are obliged under UN climate treaties to provide “new and additional” climate finance to help developing countries tackle climate change. 

They also have specific targets to “mobilise” $100bn of climate finance per year through to 2025 and “at least” $300bn by 2035.

As the UK’s contribution to international climate finance, in 2019 the Conservative government pledged to provide £11.6bn between the financial years 2021-22 and 2025-26. This amounted to “doubling” its previous five-year target.

Since then, successive governments have slashed the amount of money going towards foreign aid, citing economic strain and a need for more defence spending.

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