Rishi Sunak risks damaging trust in the UK among developing countries and reducing the country’s standing in negotiations, because of a failure to meet climate spending pledges, civil servants have told ministers.
They said that under current policies the only way to meet the £11.6bn international climate funding target agreed at Cop26 was to take a drastic combination of “hugely reputationally damaging” measures including delaying meeting the target, redefining already committed spending as climate funding, and cutting money for research and development, biodiversity and plastic pollution mitigation.
