International Climate Finance

Overview

UK International Climate Finance (ICF) helps the UK deliver on our commitments to developing countries under the Paris Climate Agreement. The UK government is supporting developing nations to:

• pursue green-growth pathways
• access clean energy
• reduce deforestation and protect nature
• build green infrastructure
• increase capacity for climate adaptation and resilience

Climate change and nature loss are among the most pressing challenges that we face globally. Urgent action is needed before 2030 to reduce emissions in line with a 1.5 degrees pathway and avoid the worst impacts of climate change, which will hit low- and middle-income countries the hardest.

Our choices and actions now, and in the years to come, will have profound, long-term consequences for our planet and our way of life. This includes the natural environment and biodiversity, global prosperity, poverty eradication and health. Without effective global action to limit and manage the impact of climate change, up to 132 million people (PDF, 389 KB) could be pushed into extreme poverty by 2030.

UK International Climate Finance (ICF) plays a crucial role in addressing this global challenge. The UK has committed to spending £11.6 billion of ICF between 2021 to 2022 and 2025 to 2026, ensuring a balance between adaptation and mitigation. This includes up to £1 billion to support clean energy, research, development  and demonstration, and at least £3 billion on protecting, restoring, and sustainably managing nature, with £1.5 billion on forests. The UK will also treble our adaptation spending from £0.5 billion in 2019 to £1.5 billion in 2025.  

UK ICF has helped 137 million people adapt to the effects of climate change, provided 89 million people with improved access to clean energy, and helped to mobilise billions in private investment. UK ICF is Official Development Assistance (ODA) and 4 government departments have responsibility for investing ICF:

• Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO)
• Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ)
• Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra)
• Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT)

The UK is proud of its role working with other countries to create the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which represent collective ambition and a shared vision for a better world by 2030. Unless we tackle climate and nature loss, the development gains of recent decades are under threat of reversal.

Domestically and internationally the UK is a leader on climate change. We played a pivotal role in securing the Paris Agreement in 2015, where the world came together to agree a plan to limit temperature rises to below 2 degrees. The UK is the first major economy to halve its emissions – having cut them by 50% between 1990 and 2022, while growing the economy by 79%. We have also cut emissions faster than any other G7 country over the last decade and have some of the world’s most ambitious legally binding targets. We have ended UK support for unabated coal power generation and, across the world, UK businesses are helping to make the global low carbon transition a reality.

The UK honours its international commitments. Alongside other developed countries, we are committed to continuing to deliver on the pledge to jointly mobilise $100 billion per year in climate finance to developing countries from public and private sources, and to working towards the new climate finance goal agreed at COP29.

We are amongst the world’s leading providers of climate finance and our climate finance is of a high quality, with a significant proportion provided in the form of grants. We ensure that climate finance programmes are designed to be responsive to country needs; are adaptable to changing circumstances; are capable of driving transformational change and offer value for money.

To meet the scale of finance needed to tackle the climate crisis, we will continue to work to mobilise the private sector and position the UK as the green finance capital of the world, including taking steps to set a world-leading sustainable finance regulatory framework.

We will also use partnerships to accelerate the required transitions, including through Just Energy Transition Partnerships (JETPs). We will address the specific needs of those on the frontlines of the climate crisis, in particular the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and Small Island Developing States (SIDS).

The UK’s ICF focuses on driving transformation and systemic shifts required to achieve the Paris Agreement goals and deliver on the Glasgow Climate Pact. We are strengthening the gender-responsiveness and inclusivity of UK climate finance for both adaptation and mitigation, including by increasing the proportion of climate finance that has gender equality as a principal or significant objective as defined by the OECD Development Assistance Committee Gender Equality policy marker.

Alongside ICF, the UK is taking action to ensure that all our new bilateral ODA spending is aligned with the Paris Agreement. Paris alignment is embedded into FCDO’s Programme Operating Framework to ensure ongoing alignment. This will help to ensure that the UK’s bilateral ODA spend is consistent with the low carbon and climate resilient development pathways that are critical for delivering on the Paris Agreement.     

Reporting ICF spend

The UK reports ICF spend through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change:

• UK Biennial Finance Communication to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (PDF, 410 KB)
• 8th National Communication and Biennial Report to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

External review

The work of ICF was last reviewed by the Independent Commission for Aid Impact in 2024. You can read details of the review below:

• Independent Commission for Aid Impact Audit of ICF (February 2019)
• Government response to ICAI audit

Contact details

For further details about ICF, contact FCDO, DESNZ or Defra:

• fcdo.correspondence@fcdo.gov.uk 
• ukicf@beis.gov.uk
• ODAHub@defra.gov.uk