The UK said it will cut its overseas aid budget in a new blow to vulnerable nations. The move will make it more difficult for the government to deliver on a promise to increase climate finance to developing countries, analysts have warned.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced plans to slash the UK aid budget from 0.5% to 0.3% of national income, which he said would allow the UK to spend £13.4 billion more on defense per year from 2027.
The UK’s climate finance commitment comes from its aid budget, which was already reduced from 0.7% to 0.5% of national income a year before the country hosted the COP26 climate talks in 2021.
Starmer is due to travel to Washington on Thursday to meet with US President Donald Trump, who has been piling pressure on Europe’s cash-strapped governments to take more responsibility for their own defence.
The decision came as a shock to the international development community, which is still reeling from Trump’s decision to freeze USAID spending and from a string of cuts to overseas development aid by European governments. Germany, Sweden, France, Belgium and the Netherlands have all announced significant cuts to their aid budgets recently.
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“Catastrophic blow”
International charities and aid organisations have responded in dismay, slamming the move as “a betrayal”, “short-sighted” and “a truly catastrophic blow” that will cause more people to die and lose their livelihoods in the world’s most vulnerable nations.
Worsening climate impacts, soaring humanitarian needs and growing instability across the world requires stronger global solidarity rather than retreat, experts warned.
“When we’ve just had the hottest January on record and humanitarian crises are at an all-time high, the UK government’s decision to slash its [overseas development assistance] budget is deeply shameful,” said Teresa Anderson, of ActionAid International.
Tom Mitchell, executive director of the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), told Climate Home News that Starmer should consider cutting harmful fossil fuel subsidies “before raiding an already depleted support system that is relied on by some of the world’s most vulnerable people”.
Climate finance watchers told Climate Home the move also threatens the UK’s ability to deliver the increased climate finance promised to developing countries at last year’s COP29.
Climate funds on the chopping board?
The UK has pledged to spend £11.6 billion ($14.7 billion) on climate finance for developing countries between 2021 and 2026, and Starmer’s Labour government recently said it remains committed to meeting this pledge.
However, analysis carried out by the UK’s Independent Commission for Aid Impact last year found that the goal would be challenging to meet as more than half of the money is expected to be spent in the last two years and amid growing pressures on the aid budget. This is despite the UK making accounting changes, which increased what it counted as climate finance without recipient countries receiving more money.
Laetitia Pettinotti, of the ODI Global think-tank, said the UK’s announcement lacks clarity on whether climate finance will be ringfenced from the cuts, which are due to take effect from 2027.
“It seems likely that climate finance could be on the chopping board if over half of that pledge is yet to be met. Sweeping cuts with no transparency is what we’ve come to expect from Trump and Musk; Starmer can’t follow suit, he needs to provide clarity,” she said.
Moreover, rich nations like the UK will be expected to dig deeper into their pockets to help scale the finance that flows to countries most vulnerable to climate impacts and who contributed the least to causing them.
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Worse timing
At the COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan, developed countries agreed to triple finance to help poorer nations cut emissions and cope with climate impacts to $300 billion annually by 2035.
“Let’s be clear this can be life and death for struggling communities and this reduction could make meeting the UK’s climate finance commitments even more challenging,” said Gareth Redmond-King, of the UK’s Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU).
As wealthy nations are expected to bolster their existing climate finance commitments, “the UK government has just reduced the budget that climate finance comes out of,” he told Climate Home.
Ahead of critical climate talks in Brazil in November, when countries are due to assess whether collective climate pledges can halt warming in line with global goals, “we were expecting to hear new climate finance commitments by the rich countries to build confidence in the poorest and emerging economies that they can afford to be ambitious in their climate targets,” said long-term climate finance watcher Clare Shakya, of The Nature Conservancy.
“If we do not peak emissions as close to 1.5C as feasible and halt biodiversity’s decline, we will be facing many more security challenges in the coming years. The timing of this news from the UK could not be worse,” Shakya told Climate Home.
Prime Minister Starmer told UK members of parliament the decision had required some “extremely difficult and painful choices” and that this was not one “that I wanted to take or that I am happy to take”.
“We will do everything we can to return to a world where that is not the case and to rebuild a capability on development,” he said, insisting the UK will “continue to play a key humanitarian role” in Sudan, Ukraine and Gaza, as well as tackling climate change.
The UK government was contacted for comment but didn’t respond at the time of publication.
The post UK aid budget cuts threaten climate finance pledge to vulnerable nations, experts warn appeared first on Climate Home News.
UK aid budget cuts threaten climate finance pledge to vulnerable nations, experts warn
Climate Change
States Say They Need More Help Replacing Lead Pipes. Congress May Cut the Funding Instead.
The U.S. House voted to cut millions promised for the work this year. The Senate will vote this week, as advocates and some lawmakers push back.
The Senate is taking up a spending package passed by the House of Representatives that would cut $125 million in funding promised this year to replace toxic lead pipes.
States Say They Need More Help Replacing Lead Pipes. Congress May Cut the Funding Instead.
Here are 6 inspiring books discussing oceans, critiques of capitalism, the Indigenous fight for environmental justice, and hope—for your upcoming reading list this year.
The Deepest Map: The High-Stakes Race to Chart the World’s Oceans
by Laura Trethewey (2023)
This book reminds me of the statement saying that people hear more about the moon and other planets in space than what lies beneath Earth’s oceans, which are often cited as ‘scary’ and ‘harsh’. Through investigative and in-depth reportage, ocean journalist and writer Laura Trethewey tackles important aspects of ocean mapping.
The mapping and exploration can be very useful to understand more about the oceans and to learn how we can protect them. On the other hand, thanks to neoliberal capitalism, it can potentially lead to commercial exploitation and mass industrialisation of this most mysterious ecosystem of our world.
The Deepest Map is not as intimidating as it sounds. Instead, it’s more exciting than I anticipated as it shows us more discoveries we may little know of: interrelated issues between seafloor mapping, geopolitical implications, ocean exploitation due to commercial interest, and climate change.
The Code of Capital: How the Law Creates Wealth and Inequality
by Katharina Pistor (2019)
Through The Code of Capital, Katharina Pistor talks about the correlation between law and the creation of wealth and inequality. She noted that though the wealthy love to claim hard work and skills as reasons why they easily significantly generate their fortunes, their accumulation of wealth would not last long without legal coding.
“The law is a powerful tool for social ordering and, if used wisely, has the potential to serve a broad range of social objectives: yet, for reasons and with implications that I attempt to explain, the law has been placed firmly in the service of capital,” she stated.
The book does not only show interesting takes on looking at inequality and the distribution of wealth, but also how those people in power manage to hoard their wealth with certain codes and laws, such as turning land into private property, while lots of people are struggling under the unjust system.
The Intersectional Environmentalist: How to Dismantle Systems of Oppression to Protect People + Planet
by Leah Thomas (2022)
Arguing that capitalism, racism, and other systems of oppression are the drivers of exploitation, activist Leah Thomas focuses on addressing the application of intersectionality to environmental justice through The Intersectional Environmentalist. Marginalised people all over the world are already on the front lines of the worsening climate crisis yet struggling to get justice they deserve.
I echo what she says, as a woman born and raised in Indonesia where clean air and drinkable water are considered luxury in various regions, where the extreme weather events exacerbated by the climate crisis hit the most vulnerable communities (without real mitigation and implementations by the government while oligarchies hijack our resources).
I think this powerful book is aligned with what Greenpeace has been speaking up about for years as well, that social justice and climate justice are deeply intertwined so it’s crucial to fight for both at the same time to help achieve a sustainable future for all.
As Long As Grass Grows
by Dina Gilio-Whitaker (2019)
Starting with the question “what does environmental justice look like when Indigenous people are at the centre?” Dina Gilio-Whitaker takes us to see the complexities of environmental justice and the endless efforts of Indigenous people in Indian country (the lands and communities of Native American tribes) to restore their traditional cultures while healing from the legacy of trauma caused by hundreds of years of Western colonisation.
She emphasizes that what distinguishes Indigenous peoples from colonisers is their unbroken spiritual relationship to their ancestral homelands. “The origin of environmental justice for Indigenous people is dispossession of land in all its forms; injustice is continually reproduced in what is inherently a culturally genocidal structure that systematically erases Indigenous people’s relationships and responsibilities to their ancestral places,” said Gilio-Whitaker.
I believe that the realm of today’s modern environmentalism should include Indigenous communities and learn their history: the resistance, the time-tested climate knowledge systems, their harmony with nature, and most importantly, their crucial role in preserving our planet’s biodiversity.
The Book of Hope
by Jane Goodall and Douglas Abrams with Gail Hudson (2021)
The Book of Hope is a marvelous glimpse into primatologist and global figure Jane Goodall’s life and work. The collaborator of the book, journalist Douglas Abrams, makes this reading experience even more enjoyable by sharing the reflective conversations between them, such as the definition of hope, and how to keep it alive amid difficult times.
Sadly, as we all know, Jane passed away this year. We have lost an incredible human being in the era when we need more someone like her who has inspired millions to care about nature, someone whose wisdom radiated warmth and compassion. Though she’s no longer with us, her legacy to spread hope stays.
Ocean: Earth’s Last Wilderness
by David Attenborough and Colin Butfield (2025)
“I could only have dreamed of recording in the early stages of my career, and we have changed the ocean so profoundly that the next hundred years could either witness a mass extinction of ocean life or a spectacular recovery.”
The legend David Attenborough highlights how much humans have yet to understand the ocean in his latest book with Colin Butfield. The first part of it begins with what has happened in a blue whale’s lifetime. Later it takes us to coral reefs, the deep of the ocean, kelp forest, mangroves, even Arctic, Oceanic seamounts, and Southern Ocean. The book contains powerful stories and scientific facts that will inspire ocean lovers, those who love to learn more about this ecosystem, and those who are willing to help protect our Earth.
To me, this book is not only about the wonder of the ocean, but also about hope to protect our planet. Just like what Attenborough believes: the more people understand nature, the greater our hope of saving it.
Kezia Rynita is a Content Editor for Greenpeace International, based in Indonesia.
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