UK AID cuts for countries facing climate disasters damaged COP26 progress before the summit started, a senior Labour MP claims.
Preet Kaur Gill says nations like Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique and Nigeria – which faced famine, locust plague, cyclone and flash floods this year – have been “abandoned” by Boris Johnson’s administration. Aid projects there have been cut by close to £300 million.
Speaking to the Sunday National, Gill, Labour’s shadow secretary for international development, said: “Despite the spin from the Conservative government, we are still nowhere near where we need to be to halve global emissions in the next 10 years and we are left on a disastrous path of global warming.
“Cutting the development budget to programmes tackling the impact of climate crisis weeks before one of the most important climate summits was further evidence that Britain under this Prime Minister continues to retreat from the world stage.
“This betrayal of trust meant he failed to build a coalition between rich and developing countries making it harder to push big emitters to deliver at COP26. As COP26 ends, we now need a plan to rebuild that trust and deliver a plan to keep temperatures to 1.5 degrees.”
READ MORE: Tory fumes as Nicola Sturgeon pledges cash to help countries hit by climate change
Chancellor Rishi Sunak has confirmed that the cut to foreign aid will last until 2024, if not beyond. The decision to abandon the commitment to spending 0.7% of gross national income on this area and drop to 0.5% has been roundly condemned by charities and political rivals, as well as meeting fierce condemnation from Tory backbenches.
Mozambique was listed as the country most affected by climate change in the 2019 Global Climate Risk Index and has seen its aid cut by as much as 44%, or £28.4m. In Nigeria, which is dealing with the impact of climate change-related flash floods, the drop is in excess of £110m.
COP26 president Alok Sharma MP is said to have been unhappy with the cuts when they went through in May. At the time, one senior senior climate negotiator from Africa told the Politico website: “You need to put your money where your mouth is. In order to constitute this collective mindset ... there’s no worse message you can send than cutting aid money.”
However, Downing Street said: “We remain one of the countries taking the lead with regard to tackling climate change.”
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