UK vows to put climate action at heart of foreign policy

By AFP

Foreign Secretary David Lammy on Tuesday pledged to make action on the climate crisis "central" to British foreign policy.

Lammy also announced the creation of a new "clean power alliance" to bridge the energy transition gap between developed and developing countries.

"The crisis is not some discrete policy area divorced from geopolitics. The threat may not feel as urgent as a terrorist or an imperialist autocrat, but it is more fundamental", Lammy said in a speech.

"We need a hardheaded, realist approach towards using all levers at our disposal," he said.

The foreign secretary said he was reinstating the UK Special Representative for Climate Change role and would create a new UK Special Representative for Nature position.

The climate change envoy position was scrapped by Rishi Sunak's Conservative government, which was criticised for a series of moves seen as backpedalling on the UK's climate commitments, including delaying the shift to electric cars and granting controversial new oil and gas licences.

Lammy called the Conservatives, ousted by Keir Starmer's Labour Party in July, a "fossil fuel government in a renewable age".

The UK has pledged to become carbon neutral by 2050 and reduce by 68 percent its greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 (compared to 1990 levels).

Earlier this year, a report by independent government advisors said Britain was not doing enough to meet targets and concluded it had "lost its clear global leadership position" on tackling the climate crisis.

Lammy said he was "determined to restore Britain’s reputation for commitment and innovation in the world of development finance".

His comments followed a speech earlier Tuesday by Energy and Net Zero Secretary Ed Miliband who called for urgent action to decarbonise the UK, calling the energy transition a fight for "national security".

Ahead of the COP29 summit in November with a goal of deciding how much should be raised for developing countries to deal with climate change, Lammy said there was a need to "unlock much, much more climate and nature finance".

Apart from looking to private sector investment, Lammy said he would bring to parliament a UK "guarantee" for the Asian Development Bank that would unlock $1.2 billion (£900 million) in climate finance for developing countries in the region.

Speaking from London's Kew Gardens -- boasting the world's largest botanical collection -- Lammy also called for action to "reverse the decline in biodiversity".

Since coming to power, Starmer's government has said it will end new oil and gas licences in the North Sea, and announced plans for a publicly owned energy company to invest in green technology.