PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Climate Change (1 September 2014)

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, how much his Department has spent on climate change-related diplomacy in each of the last five years; and what funding has been allocated for future climate change-related diplomacy.

Asked by:
Kerry McCarthy (Labour)

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO)’s Total Direct Expenditure on ‘Climate Change/Low Carbon Economy/Energy Security’ over the last 5 years are as follows:

2009/10 £28,796,697
2010/11 £25,892,831
2011/12 £21,926,636
2012/13 £18,958,265
2013/14 £15,823,777

These figures include Prosperity Fund project spend and salaries. The figures exclude management, support and indirect costs/overheads.

The reduction in spend has occurred within the context of the wider Government and FCO budgetary reductions necessitated by the biggest budget deficit in the UK's peacetime history inherited from the previous administration. We have been able to target our climate change spending where the FCO can have the most impact.

Climate change and energy/resource security remain high-level foreign policy priorities. Precise budgetary allocations for future years are dependent on the overall FCO budgetary allocation from Her Majesty's Treasury and for 2015-16 onwards relate to the next Comprehensive Spending Review Period.

Answered by:
Sir James Duddridge (Conservative)
4 September 2014