UK spent £1.5bn in one year on 'climate change projects'
Sunday Telegraph 19/2/12
UK spent £3.5bn on 'climate change'
UK's 1.5bn for climate change aid
RICHARD GRAY
Science Correspondent
NEARLY £1.5 billion has been spent tackling man-made climate change by
the Government department responsible for fighting poverty abroad, it
can be revealed.
The Department for International Development (DfiD) has funded
projects which it says will either reduce carbon emissions abroad or
attempt to deal with the effects of predicted changes in the earth's
climate.
In the past four years DfiD has spent £900 million on climate change
projects, with nearly two thirds of that being spent in the past
financial year under the Coalition. A further £533 million has already
been committed up to 2013.
The biggest recipients of the climate change aid are India and
Indonesia, two countries considered to be rapidly emerging economies.
The disclosures - made under the Freedom of Information Act - will
raise fresh questions over how foreign aid is spent, and comes after
an Indian minister described British aid to the country as "peanuts",
which ministers in London had begged Delhi to continue accepting.
DfiD is one of only two departments not affected by the Government's
austerity drive, with a budget last year of £8.4 billion.
The figures released by the Government reveal that total spending on
tackling climate change overseas rose from £61 million in 2007-08 to
more than £883million in 2010-11.
During that time. DfiD saw the biggest increase in spending on climate
change with funding for projects now 45 times higher than four years
ago. The department now also employs 66 specialist climate and
environmental advisers.
Among the aid provided was a £4.7million project in Indonesia aimed at
helping the government there provide "more effective leadership and
management of climate change programming".
Another project encouraged Indian farmers to use foot pumps to draw
water from underground rather than diesel powered pumps.
A project in western Kenya to help indigenous Nganyi rain-makers being
undermined by extreme weather conditions caused by changes in the
climate was launched in 2008 as part of a £25 million climate change
adaptation programme funded by DfiD.
It aimed to bring the rain-makers together with government
meteorologists to produce a "consensus forecast" combining satellite
data and computer models with traditional techniques, such as
observing wildlife and pot blowing, where herbs are placed into a pot
buried in the ground into which the rain-maker blows through a pipe,
listening for coming winds.
In total £3.5billion of public money has been paid out or allocated to
projects addressing climate change abroad since 2007-08.
Although DfiD accounts for the bulk of the spending, other departments
also spent significant amounts abroad. The Foreign and Commonwealth
Office spent more than £71million on climate change and energy
programmes overseas in the past two years.
This included a "Low Carbon High Growth Strategic Fund" operating in
developed and developing countries including Poland, China, India,
Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Indonesia and Mexico.
The Department for Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs has spent
more than £233,000 attending climate change talks and has also
allocated £10 million for a project to tackle deforestation in the
Brazilian Cerrado.
As revealed by The Sunday Telegraph last year, the Department for
Energy and Climate Change also spent £537million on "developing an
international agreement on climate change" and promoting low carbon
technologies in developing countries since 2007-08. It plans to spend
a further £1 billion by 2015.
Last night Conservative MPs said the expenditure had to be closely
examined.
Douglas Carswell, MP for Clacton, said: "It is not a priority for us
to be spending these large amounts of public money on climate change
when there is hardship at home."
But Andrew Mitchell, Secretary of State for International Development,
said it was in Britain's best interests to help other countries tackle
climate change because it is a global problem.
He said: "Climate change will hit the poorest hardest and leave many
more people susceptible to flooding, failing crops and food shortages.
We can only help these people if all countries - rich and poor - work
together."
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Rev P F MA .
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