Public Letter to the Prime Minister from 71 Organisations on Climate Change

20 September 2024

Dear Prime Minister,

As 71 UK civil society and faith organisations, from large international development and environment charities to local groups from across the four nations, we welcome your government’s mission to “create a world free from poverty on a liveable planet” and commitment to be a climate leader. The existential threat we all face from climate change can only be tackled with global cooperation, which is why the UN General Assembly (UNGA) next week and COP29 in November will be crucial first tests of that leadership.

As the fifth largest historical emitter and sixth largest economy, the UK has both the responsibility and the capability to take far greater action on climate change – at home and overseas. Leading on international climate action requires clear and ambitious commitments that restore trust, leading by example domestically, and contributing to fair financing of climate action globally; these are the benchmarks against which your government will be judged.

At COP29 in Azerbaijan, an ambitious, fair, and needs-based new collective quantified goal (NCQG) for climate finance for developing countries must be agreed. But negotiations are dangerously off course, and failure to deliver on finance would unravel decades of global cooperation to tackle climate change. High-level political leadership is urgently required by you and other World Leaders at UNGA to chart a course that delivers a justice-based outcome.

Currently it is communities and countries that are the least responsible for causing the climate emergency that are paying with their lives, livelihoods, homes, lands, ecosystems, and futures. An unbearable injustice. The economic burden is stark, with climate change costing African nations up to 5% of GDP¹, and Small Island Developing States like Vanuatu over 35% GDP annually and more in higher impact years². It is simply not fair.

The UK has not been paying its fair share. The previous government cut Official Development Assistance (ODA) from 0.7 to 0.5% of GNI and double counted ODA as climate finance. It failed to implement reasonable measures to make polluters and the wealthiest in our society pay to generate much needed additional public finance for climate action, despite Oxfam estimates that up to £23bn could have been raised in 2022 this way without unfairly costing UK households³.

Climate finance is not a handout, but a debt we owe to countries and communities that have been made vulnerable to climate change, while the UK has benefited from burning fossil fuels. We have a historical responsibility to address the harm caused and to play a leading role in financing a global just and equitable transition away from fossil fuels and towards resilience. This is not aid and climate finance should have always been additional to pre-existing ODA commitments. 

Increased ambition on international climate finance (ICF) plays a critical role in preventing further climate breakdown, driving action for communities who are bearing the brunt of the greatest impacts, while also avoiding greater global instability and losses including threats to critical supply chains for industries and communities in the UK. 

Increasing ambition on international climate finance must go hand-in-hand with increasing ambition on domestic action. Successive UK Prime Ministers have stood on podiums and declared the UK a climate leader and urged other countries to do more, while the UK has continued to fail to do its fair share. With the world off course to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C, every possible action is now urgent, and a step-change in ambition and implementation in the UK’s 2035 Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) would catalyse greater global action, strengthen multilateralism, and build trust. 

At UNGA and COP29, we urge you to concretely demonstrate new action and leadership from the UK to raise the bar globally on ambition and implementation. We call on you to:

  1. Return UK ODA commitments to 0.7% and reverse last year’s ICF accounting changes to rebuild the UK’s reputation as a trusted partner that fulfils its international promises.
  2. Champion an NCQG that centres the needs and priorities of affected countries and communities, and delivers the scale of public finance needed.
  3. Commit to providing future UK ICF that is genuinely new and additional by putting in place polluter pays measures to generate new public finance in a fair way.
  4. Raise ambition with a UK 2035 NDC that sets a new global benchmark commensurate with the UK’s responsibilities and the urgency to keep 1.5°C alive, by going well beyond the existing sixth carbon budget and incorporating your government’s new ambitions and plans for UK climate leadership, restoring and protecting nature, and becoming a clean energy superpower.

As the Labour manifesto states, “the climate and nature crisis is the greatest long-term global challenge that we face,” and we urge you to take bold action at UNGA, COP29, and beyond to address the urgency and scale of this challenge at home and internationally.

Yours sincerely,

Catherine Pettengell.

Executive Director, Climate Action Network UK (CAN-UK).

 

On behalf of the following UK civil society organisations:

  1. Action Against Hunger UK
  2. ActionAid UK
  3. Age International
  4. Awel Amen Tawe
  5. Bond
  6. Cardiff Quakers
  7. CAFOD
  8. CARE International UK
  9. CBM UK
  10. Christian Aid
  11. Christian Climate Action
  12. Climate Action Network UK
  13. Climate and Community
  14. Climate Cymru
  15. Climate Outreach
  16. Climate Shop
  17. Clynfyw Care Farm
  18. Concern Worldwide
  19. Co-production Network for Wales
  20. Datblygiadau Egni Gwledig
  21. Debt Justice
  22. Egni Cooperative
  23. Environmental Investigation Agency UK
  24. Faith for the Climate
  25. Ffynnone Community Resilience
  26. Friends of the Earth England Wales and Northern Ireland
  27. Friends of the Earth Scotland
  28. Global Citizen
  29. Global Witness
  30. Green Christian
  31. Green Economy Coalition
  32. Greenpeace UK
  33. Gwyrddni
  34. Hay Public Library
  35. Humanity and Inclusion
  36. Institute of Development Studies
  37. Islamic Relief UK
  38. Justice and Peace Scotland
  39. Laudato Si’ Animators UK
  40. Mercy Corps
  41. Operation Noah
  42. Oxfam GB
  43. Plan International UK
  44. Pontypridd Land Society
  45. Practical Action
  46. Quakers in Britain 
  47. RSPB
  48. Save the Children
  49. SCIAF
  50. Scotland’s International Development Alliance
  51. Scottish Communities Climate Action Network (SCCAN)
  52. Size of Wales
  53. Stamp out Poverty
  54. Stop Climate Chaos Cymru
  55. Stop Climate Chaos Scotland
  56. Sustainable Wales
  57. The Climate Coalition
  58. The One Planet Centre
  59. The Mentor Ring
  60. Tir Natur
  61. Tree Aid
  62. UK Youth Climate Coalition
  63. UNICEF UK
  64. Uplift
  65. Water Aid
  66. Water Witness
  67. Wellbeing Economy Alliance Scotland
  68. World Animal Protection UK
  69. World Vision UK
  70. WWF-UK
  71. XR Cardigan