The impact of UK overseas aid on environmental protection and climate change adaptation and mitigation

Supplementary evidence submitted by DfID officials

1. In response to Q126 approximately 5 multilaterals were referred to who scored highly overall but performed poorly on environment and climate change. Which multilaterals did this apply to? What is happening to their funding? How will their poor performance on environment and climate change be addressed?

o    The overall assessment of value for money for UK aid reflects the balance of strengths and weaknesses across all the areas covered by the Multilateral Aid Review (MAR). Five high-performing multilaterals scored as weak on climate change and the environment but, because of strengths in other areas, were assessed as very good or good value for money for UK aid overall. These were: 

o       International Committee of the Red Cross,

o       ECHO,

o       UNICEF,

o       African Development Fund and

o       Central Emergency Response Fund

 o   Funding for ECHO is fixed for the next four years. We have already announced a 35% increase in funding to the African Development Fund and a near-doubling of funding to UNICEF. Funding to ICRC and CERF is under consideration following the outcome of the Humanitarian Emergency Response Review.

o Funding for all organisations assessed in the MAR will continue to depend on evidence of performance, including progress against key reform priorities. Environmental sustainability and climate change will be a key part of the dialogue between DFID and the institution.

2. [DEFRA lead] What is the UK Government doing to identify and address unsustainable consumption in the UK which is having a detrimental impact on developing countries? Have any specific links been identified and addressed?

o This is a complex field, but evidence to identify and measure environmental and other pressures caused by consumption patterns in developed economies like the UK has been growing in the last few years.

o The most comprehensive picture so far has been assembled in the European Environment Agency (EEA) "State of the Environment" report 2010, which focuses on "consumption and the environment" ( http://www.eea.europa.eu/soer/europe/consumption-and-environment ).

o The evidence picture is being augmented by work for the European Commission on the sustainable use of natural resources, including the impacts of trade flows into the EU economies ( http://ec.europa.eu/environment/natres/studies.htm ).

o There are ambitions to address these issues as part of an EU-wide initiative for the more sustainable use of resources, with action expected to flow from a Commission-coordinated "roadmap for a resource-efficient Europe" due to be published later this year ( http://ec.europa.eu/environment/resource_efficiency/index_en.htm ). It is also likely that the global challenges of moving to a "green economy" internationally will be a central feature of the "Rio+20" summit in June 2012. In the UK we also seek to encourage businesses to be more efficient in their use of resources more generally, for example, through the work of the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) and on responsibility deals. By UK business improving their resource efficiency, the impacts of producing these products abroad are reduced. Recent research for Defra has identified that UK business can also benefit from this by potentially saving around £23bn and 29MtCO2 annually.

o The UK Government is closely interested in the challenges posed by current consumption patterns, and is contributing both to the building up of practical evidence and the development of tools and solutions to the challenges.

On the evidence front;

- Defra published in 2006 two reports to inform Defra’s evidence base on our impacts abroad. The first report, ‘International Impacts of UK and EU Consumption (Biodiversity), looked at a range of case studies including cotton imports from Pakistan, soy imports from Brazil and coal imports from South Africa. It revealed the UK to be a major importer of commodities from countries with areas of globally recognised sensitive biodiversity, for example, almost 7% of Pakistan’s cotton. The second report, ‘Sustainable Commodities’ aimed to identify significant impacts arising from UK consumption. Key findings were the UK is the world’s largest importer of cut flowers mainly from Kenya, the UK is major importer of wood from Latvia and a globally significant importer of palm oil.

- Defra have acquired a dataset showing the geographical source of greenhouse gas emissions resulting from supply chains importing products for UK consumption, split by sector and in some cases products. While carbon emissions themselves do not impact specific countries the data will allow Defra to target our discussions with international companies and Governments to work with them to reduce the impacts of specific supply chains known to be high impact. It is Defra’s aim to support the creation of comparable data sets for other impacts, such as water, where the global data is not currently of this standard.

- A study published in December 2010 identified resources that could pose a risk to UK businesses in the future. Rare earths was identified as a key risk as it is mainly imported from China, and suggests significant impacts from this. This study makes the case for resource efficiency, encouraging UK businesses to use their resources efficiently and to invest in recovery and recycling techniques, which will reduce the need to extract virgin materials. We are currently looking at follow-up study options to better understand the environmental impacts from the extraction of these materials.

- Defra sponsored, as a joint government initiative with DFID, the UK Foresight Global Food and Farming Futures Project. The UK has used this research to identify specific links and address long term food security challenges and hence developed a roadmap for going forward with international collaboration.

o HMG has been involved in the development of tools which can be used within global supply chains to address the issues of the overseas impacts in the products imported into the UK. Notably we pioneered the methodology for measuring the whole life-cycle emissions associated with products (the PAS 2050 method for measuring ‘carbon footprints’). We are also investigating the potential of ‘water footprinting’ techniques for the better understanding of impacts in production taking place overseas.

o The kind of solutions we have been working with to address some of these issues include actions in the food sector, and on certain commodity materials and consumer products. For example:

Food

o Defra are seeking to influence global governance reform, including the Global Partnership for Agriculture and Food Security (GPAFS), to ensure they support sustainable agriculture and nutrition objectives.

Reducing food waste

o In the UK this is a key aspect of reducing post-harvest losses internationally. Defra is planning to showcase the WRAP ‘Love Food, Hate Waste’ campaign internationally to share and disseminate good practice to help reduce the pressure to produce more food globally.

Marine

o Defra was successful in lobbying for the EU IUU fishing regulation and strengthening the Monitoring, Control and Surveillance capabilities worldwide to improve the global sustainability and governance of fisheries. An example of our collaboration is with the Partnership for African Fisheries.

Palm Oil

o We are about to publish a study that seeks to map and understand palm oil supply chains in the UK. Palm oil has been shown to be a major cause of deforestation and land use change internationally, especially in South East Asia. This project will allow us to identify the major sources of palm oil used in the UK, the products it is used in, and the potential interventions the Government could consider to increase the proportion of that palm oil which is certified sustainable.

o At the same time Defra has been jointly funding a project with the Chinese Chamber of Commerce to create the business rationale for sustainable sourcing of palm oil in China, and exploring policy options for the Ministry of Commerce to encourage it.

The Sustainable Clothing Roadmap

o This is a voluntary initiative, coordinated by WRAP (Waste & Resources Action Programme), involving over 300 companies along the clothing supply chain, to provide a platform for an integrated approach to sustainable clothing throughout the sector.

o While it originates in the UK - it has linkages with Asia (especially China and India), EU and USA to date as most UK consumed clothes have a global supply chain.

o The Government takes the sustainability and ethical impact of the UK fashion and retail sector seriously. 

o Over 40 organisations, including high street shops and well-known brands, having made specific commitments in the Sustainable Clothing Action Plan within five priority areas. One of the priority areas concerns instruments for improving traceability along the supply chain (environment, ethics and trade).

Some examples of specific actions in this area include:

1. John Lewis introducing a traceability system allowing transparency of cotton supply chains from growers to finished product.

2. Sainsbury’s implementing a traceability programme in Bangladesh for 100 per cent cotton garments.

3. DFID, set up the ‘Responsible and Accountable Garment Sector’ (RAGS) Challenge Fund providing £3.5 million to support projects aimed at improving conditions of vulnerable workers in the ready-made garment production industries. The fund is aimed at workers in low-income countries in Asia that supply the UK market.

3. Is it feasible for developing countries to leapfrog to clean energy production or will they need to exploit carbon intensive technologies in order to achieve economic growth?

o The use of carbon intensive technologies will not cease in developing countries in the short term. There are, however, significant options for them to increase clean energy production as illustrated by a number of successful examples, including the experience of the Chinese and Indian wind energy industries. Within 10 years they have progressed from having no wind turbine manufacturers to hosting leading companies capable of manufacturing whole wind energy systems with most of the components produced locally. In 2009, China added 13.8 GW of new wind power, more than any other country in the world, equal to more than one-third of the world market-up from just a 2 percent market share in 2004.

o The absence of ‘lock in’ to old, carbon intensive technologies and the chance to skip early, risky stages of technological development - if initial risks of developing new products have been borne in ‘frontrunner’ countries - allow countries to exploit comparative cost advantage when producing modern technologies at scale (for example, through developing manufacturing capacity with low labour costs).

o There are also opportunities through disruptive innovation (lower cost and performance products - compared to existing technologies  - into new, niche developing country markets) and reverse innovation (products made for a developing country market then exported to the developed world).

o The Clean Technology Fund (one of the Climate Investment Funds), is helping to catalyse clean energy production on a large scale in the Middle East and North Africa. The CTF has endorsed $750m of funding for a proposed 1GW concentrated solar power (CSP) programme in the MENA region. This investment will lead to a two-fold increase in the current global installed capacity of CSP, and should directly create around 5,000 jobs. It should bring down global costs of this technology and facilitate its faster and greater diffusion, leading to significant additional development benefits and abatement above and beyond that achieved directly by the CTF.

4. How does DFID strengthen governance and capacity in recipient countries?

The UK is supporting governance and capacity building in several ways, including:

o The Climate Development Knowledge Network (CDKN) consists of a central knowledge hub managed by PWC, ODI and LEAD, and three regional offices in Asia, Africa and Latin America, which aim to provide tailored knowledge and advisory services to developing country stakeholders on issues related to climate change and development. It aims to deliver high quality knowledge products, best practice and advice required by developing countries to assess climate risks, build low carbon economies and protect their poorest and most effected citizens. We expect the CDKN to ensure that developing country policy makers and practitioners have ready access to the latest research on the implications of climate change for development and are able to easily access bespoke demand-led technical assistance to help meet their countries' climate challenges. The programme will also commission strategic policy research, strengthen research institutions and build capacity more generally.

o DFID is supporting an International Union for Conservation of Nature programme to improve natural resource governance for rural poverty reduction. The overall goal that this 5-year programme is contributing to is to improve natural resource governance for rural poverty reduction and its purpose is to improve livelihood security in selected countries through better environmental governance, including fair and equitable access to natural resources, new benefit sharing arrangements, and more participative and transparent decision making. It will do this by working with partners in Asia, Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and South America. The outcomes expected are improvements in institutions, in policies and in decision making mechanisms as they relate to natural resources. Specific countries are: Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Benin, Lebanon, Syria, South Africa, Mozambique, Drylands of Africa (Kenya, Tunisia, Mali-Burkina Faso transborder area), Bolivia, Peru.

o Poor management and conflict over water and other natural resources has contributed to the crisis in Darfur. To combat this DFID has provided a total of £3.9 million to UNEP to build capacity and ownership in local governments to implement water management plans. This is helping to reduce conflict and is contributing to more secure access to water for 7 million people, including those displaced and living in camps.

5. The 2006 White Paper, ‘Making governance work for the poor,’ made commitments to support domestic action on climate change within developing countries. What progress can you report on fulfilling that commitment since 2006?

o These commitments were made under the previous Government and we are no longer monitoring progress against this commitment. Climate change is one of the key six Structural Reform Priorities for DFID. This commits DFID to driving urgent action to tackle climate change, and support adaptation and low carbon growth in developing countries

o  We expect the Climate and Development Knowledge Network to ensure that developing country policy makers and practitioners are able to easily access bespoke demand-led technical assistance to help meet their countries' climate challenges. The programme will also commission strategic policy research, strengthen research institutions and build capacity more generally. The UNEP / UNDP Poverty and Environment Programme, which DFID contributes to, aims to build the capacity of developing country decision makers to better integrate environment and climate priorities within their development plans and strategies.

6. Does DFID have overarching strategies in the areas listed below? (Q 7.) If so, what are the key elements of them? (Q 8.) Can you summarise DFID’s main work on the areas listed above? (Q 9.) What expertise does DFID have in-house on the areas listed above?

a. Water (Resources Management)

o DFID's overarching aim in the area of Water Resources Management (WRM) is to increase water security of poor people in developing countries by supporting the efficient use of water to strengthen growth and reduce vulnerability to floods and droughts. The impacts of climate change on people will be felt mainly through water (Stern Review).  Water is not uniformly available, and is concentrated in particular areas and in particular times of the year – necessitating effective management of competing demands for this resource. With a rising population and increasing climate uncertainty this will become more difficult. 

o DFID operates at three levels on water resource management.  At the national level, we are working in a number of countries including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Ethiopia and – as noted above - Darfur.

o At the regional level we operate in Africa – Southern Africa and the Nile Basin - and Asia. DFID has been a key supporter of the Nile Basin Initiative, which serves as an example of how WRM is an entry point for cooperative development and benefit among partners. There is now $1 billion worth of projects prepared. In South Asia, the dialogue and analytical work being undertaken by the South Asian Water Initiative is already yielding benefits by brokering greater information sharing between riparians on water, development of cooperative research and the development of a Ganga River Basin authority in India.  

o At the global level, DFID’s has been supporting the Global Water Partnership (GWP) which works to develop capacity to share knowledge so as to support better water management. Key examples of GWP’s work include GWP Mali’s facilitation of the securing of funding to implement the Mali Iintegrated WRM Plan. Donors committed to fund 85% of the envisaged costs of implementing agreed measures.    Similarly, GWP action in Zambia caused their Integrated Water Resources Management plan to guide the World Bank’s Country Assistance Strategy – which recommended supporting water resources management projects that have a direct impact on national development. 

o There is an advisor and analyst working on WRM for around 50% of their time within the Adaptation and Water Resources Management team within Policy Division.  Within the infrastructure cadre there are at least four advisers who are spending a significant portion of their time working on WRM issues on regional and national issues. In addition we have 3 seconded staff to the African Development Bank, the African Water Facility and the World Bank.

b. Forests

o Our overarching aim for our support to forestry is to reduce the number of forest-dependent people living in poverty, reduce deforestation and conserve biodiversity. DFID’s Forest Governance and Trade Project has made an important contribution to global efforts to control illegal logging and the related trade in illegally harvested timber. The programme, which runs from 2006-11 with a total budget of £24 million, has contributed to a significant reduction in illegal logging in affected countries, as well as galvanising action to close European markets to illegally harvested timber. This programme has been closely aligned with the EU Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Action Plan.

o We are currently finishing the design of an expanded follow-on programme.

o The UK is providing £300m over the period 2010–12 to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+). Some funding has been channelled through the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF), which is raising awareness and building a broad base of support for REDD+ across many developing countries. Funding has also been channelled into the Forest Investment Programme (FIP), which will support the investments required to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as well as tackling poverty in communities which depend on forests for a living and protecting the rich biodiversity found in tropical forests. We are currenly undertaking scoping work to determine how best to deploy additional ICF support for forests.

o DFID has two full-time forestry advisers, and a network of climate and environment advisers posted in country offices. Other government departments, including DECC and DEFRA also dedicate staff time to this issue.

c. Agriculture and Food

o Over the next four years the UK will:

o stop 10 million more children going hungry;

o ensure another four million people have enough food throughout the year.

o In addition to this we will help more than six million of the world’s poorest people to escape extreme poverty, with likely concurrent benefits for their food security.

o These are provisional, aggregate outcomes based on the current stage of our operational planning. Country operational plans that set out how results will be delivered will be made public from Spring 2011. They will provide a more detailed picture of the full extent of our work on food and nutritional security.

o Currently, we anticipate working on food security at the regional level in Africa and Asia and directly in a small number of countries including Ethiopia, (South) Sudan, Zimbabwe and Burma. In other countries including Rwanda, Kenya and Malawi we will deliver programmes which improve the livelihoods of rural people and the enabling environment for small holder food producers.

o We will also be working directly to improve nutritional outcomes for women and young children in countries including Bangladesh, India, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Tanzania, Kenya, Somalia, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. We will improve the evaluation of our nutrition programmes to ensure that we generate better evidence about what works and provides good value for money. And, along with a number of partner governments, the Gates Foundation and multilateral agencies, we will support the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Initiative – the most promising mechanism for accelerating action to improve nutrition in the first 1000 days of a child’s life.

o Over the next four years we will continue to support multilateral agencies with a mandate on food and nutritional security, most obviously the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the World Food Programme (WFP), which were all assessed as strong performers in the Multilateral Aid Review. We are demanding an urgent improvement in the performance of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) which was assessed as poor. We will monitor performance closely and, if improvements are not made in the next two years, will consider whether the UK should continue to be a member of FAO.

o Across HMG, we will seek to influence global governance reform, including the Global Partnership for Agriculture and Food Security (GPAFS) and FAO, plus G8 L’Aquila funding – of which the UK has already dispersed a third of the committed £1.1 billion over 3 years - to ensure they support sustainable agriculture, food security and nutrition objectives.

o There are 4 full time advisers in DFID's policy division who work on food security and agriculture issues, and a further position which DFID are actively recruiting to fill.  There is also part of a further adviser who works in the regional department.  Beyond Policy Division there are three full time advisers in the agricultural research team and over 50 livlihoods advisers in DFID as a whole who will be regularly working on these issues throughout their careers.

d. Marine

o Fisheries contribute to food sustainability and security both directly and indirectly.  Fish provide essential nutrition to millions of people across the world. In addition, fisheries can be used to enhance food security by generating wealth that can support livelihoods and fuel economic growth, notably in developing countries.  As such, well managed fisheries can contribute to achieving the Millennium Development goals, notably on reducing poverty and hunger (MDG 1), and contributing to environmental sustainability (MDG 7).

o Yet globally, fish stocks are over-exploited.  The necessary governance is often ineffective or absent, and the potential to capture wealth from this valuable resource is being dissipated.  Efforts to manage stocks sustainably continue to be undermined by a high value trade in illegally caught fish.  While capacity-enhancing subsidies serve to provide further incentives for over-exploitation, which can damage the marine eco-systems on which fish depend.    

o HMG is working to promote more effective governance of fisheries worldwide, and in particular in Africa through the Partnership for African Fisheries Programme – a £7m DFID funded programme to ensure better contribution of fisheries to African economic growth and food security.

o We continue to support efforts to combat illegal fishing around the world. Including through effective implementation of the EU illegal fishing regulation which is designed to prevent illegal imports of fish and fish products from entering the EU market, and have put in place the necessary controls at UK ports. We also continue to support the FAO’s proposal to develop a Global Record of fishing vessels, which will aid transparency and help the supply chain better manage risks of sourcing illegally caught products. We are an active participant of the International Monitoring, Control and Surveillance Network, a global network of fisheries enforcement officials, and deploy our own expertise at international fora to support capacity building in developing countries.

o On Biodiversity, we are working with FCO on a marine framework for protecting biodiversity in UK Overseas Territories.

o Main resource on international marine and fisheries policy is housed in Defra, where there are 4 FTE advisers (i.e. SEO+) spending the majority of their time working on these issues. Defra also has 2 advisers in the Marine Management Organisation working on international fisheries enforcement.

e. Protection of ecosystems and biodiversity

o DFID strategy on ecosystem services and biodiversity is guided by our commitment to achieving MDG7: Ensure Environmental Sustainability.

o There are two main components to the way in which we work on ecosystems and biodiversity;

1. Supporting developing country partners to improve the management of their ecosystems and biodiversity. This is achieved through a number of activities, including

o Working with and providing £210 million over the period 2010-2014 to the Global Environment Facility to support the implementation of ecosystem services and biodiversity related programmes in GEF eligible countries. Between 1991 and 2006, the GEF provided about $2.2 billion in grants, and leveraged about $5.17 billion in co-financing in support for about 750 biodiversity related projects in 155 countries. £210 million will contribute to the delivery of the GEF5 Focal Area Strategy, delivering results in the areas of: Biodiversity, Climate Change, Sustainable Forest Management, Land Degradation, International Waters, Chemicals and cross-cutting capacity. Examples of expected outcomes are: 50% of parties that revise NBSAPs successfully integrate measurable biodiversity conservation and sustainable use targets into development and sectoral planning frameworks. Increased investment in less-GHG intensive transport and urban systems. Good management practices in LULUCF adopted both within the forest land and in the wider landscape

o Working with the joint UNEP / UNDP Poverty and Environment Initiative (PEI) to build the capacity of developing countries to better articulate their environment priorities within their development plans, strategies and dcecision

o Working with the World Bank, The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) programme and UNEP to assess the value of biodiversity and ecosystem services in developing countries and integrate these values in decision making and national accounting

o Working bilaterally through our country offices to provide technical assistance, knowledge and information on ecosystem and natural resource management

o Working through the UN Convention on Biological Diversity to agree and commit to ambitious targets for the protection of ecosystem services and biodiversity and to identify funding and resource gaps and needs to facilitate improved management

2. Improving systems and decision making in DFID to ensure our own programmes and spend take account of impacts and opportunities for ecosystems and biodiversity, for example:

o DFIDs Climate and Environment Assessment will ensure that biodiversity and ecosystem services are considered in all of our spending decisions

o DFID has dedicated resources in the Climate and Environment Department, Research and Evidence Department and the Growth, Agriculture and Resilience Team working on ecosystems, natural resources and biodiversity. This is in addition to advisory posts in country offices – including Nepal, India, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Ghana, Bangladesh and Kenya. DFID has a network of 59 Climate and Environment Advisors who have a level knowledge of ecosystem and biodiversity issues. Other government departments, in particular Defra, have dedicated staff working on ecosystem services and biodiversity

7. Does DFID have targets on increasing energy supply generally or increasing renewable energy usage in developing countries?

o DFID itself does not have general targets on increasing energy supply nor for increasing renewable energy supply usage in developing countries. Some specific projects we support will have specific energy supply and access targets.

o We are pressing the multilateral development banks (MDBs) to increase the proportion of renewable energy in their energy lending portfolios. The World Bank Group lending to renewable energy projects (excluding large hydropower) has been steadily increasing, and reached $1.4 bn in 2009 and $1.5bn in 2010. We support the MDBs when they set challenging clean energy targets for themselves as the World Bank is proposing to do in its new Energy Strategy.

8. When will the assessments of the business case process and the strategic climate review process be available to the committee? (Q144 and 146)

We expect to make available no later than Autumn 2011:

a. The assessment of the climate and environment assessment – (the component of the business case referred to in Q144) and

b. The review of the Strategic Climate Review pilot.

9. What types of opportunities does DFID anticipate identifying as part of the new business case assessment process?

Examples of opportunities to take forward climate and environment objectives in DFID programmes include:

o School building programmes could explore using sustainable building materials and renewable energy options;

o Disaster risk reduction programmes could include improving management of ecosystems which play a role reducing impact and increasing resilience e.g. restoration of mangroves to reduce the impact of tidal surges;

o Addressing environmental health impacts associated with, for example, indoor air pollution from cooking stoves.

10. Did strategic climate programme reviews cover entire portfolios or only programmes over a certain financial threshold?

o The reviews cover entire country portfolios.

11. How much of DFID’s aid is programmed through NGOs?

a. As part of the UK Aid Transparency Initiative, the publishing of Business Cases for projects and programmes over £400 will show how aid will be programmed.

b. Historical NGO spend can be seen in the table below, which is Table 3 on the ‘statistics on international development’ section of the DFID website: http://www.dfid.gov.uk/Documents/publications1/sid2010/table3.xls?epslanguage=en

c. The UK also reports to the OECD in line with reporting standards on spending mechanisms.

Extract from DFID Expenditure on Development 2005/06-2009/10

12. How much has DFID spent on ecosystem protection?

o In 2009, DFID disbursements on programmes with biodiversity related benefits were £41.3m. This included our contribution to the Global Environment Facility.

o The UK has pledged a contribution of £210m for the fifth replenishment of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) from 2010 to 2014 as described above. The GEF is the financial mechanism of the Convention on Biological Diversity, with 28.6% of the GEF budget now being allocated to support biodiversity programmes in GEF eligible countries

o The UK’s contribution to the GEF should be seen in the wider context of DFID's programmes which will have significant benefits for biodiversity. For example; DFID's support of £100,000 to The Economics of Ecosystem Services (TEEB) study; £24m for the Forest Governance and Trade programme (FGT),; ongoing support to the UN Poverty and Environment Initiative; and, support to the Darwin Initiative.

13. What is the standard funding span of environmental protection and climate change programmes?

Most programmes under design are for 3-5 years. But successful programmes can be followed by further phases to broaden their impact and scale up results.

14. How much of the aid the UK provides – including core funding through multi-nationals – goes to support traditional carbon-intensive development?

o DFID does not have a metric that identifies aid which supports traditional carbon-intensive development.  However, we have put considerable effort into working with the multilateral development banks (MDBs) on clean energy lending, and to reduce fossil fuel investment as described above. We are doing this, for example by providing funding to support the additional costs of renewable energy (e.g. The Climate Investment Funds) and through core funding to the Energy Sector Management Assistance Program.

o DFID is also working to mainstream climate change awareness into our everyday programming across the department so that all DFID programmes consistently look at low carbon options.

15. What are the current trends on CO2 emissions in DFID’s 27 priority countries?

o The UNFCCC, CAIT and EDGAR websites give information on the trends of CO2 emissions in developing countries. Developing countries are asked by the UNFCCC to report on their GHG emission trajectories through delivering National Communication Plans. Data submitted to UNFCCC for the National Communications are included in the CAIT estimates.

Website addresses:

a. UNFCCC - (1990-2007) - http://unfccc.int/di/FlexibleQueries.do

b. WRI CAIT – (1990 – 2005) http://cait.wri.org/

c. EDGAR - (1990 – 2005)_ http://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/

16. What research exists which quantifies the link between environmental protection and climate change and poverty reduction?

o The World Bank’s economics of adaptation work helped to quantify costs of global adaptation, this was co-funded by the UK, the Netherlands and Switzerland.

o DFID’s support for the Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation (ESPA) research programme will deliver high quality and cutting-edge research that will improve our understanding of ecosystems in terms of the services they provide for poverty reduction and inclusive growth processes.

o One project that illustrates the way that world-class research can deliver benefits to both people and planet is the Swahili Seas Project based near Mombasa on the coast in Kenya. Here, ESPA researchers are working with the local community of around 1500 people who have a reliance on fishing. As in many coastal areas, local fisheries are at risk of both over exploitation and environmental pressure. The Swahili Seas project aims to use the evidence generated from research to help to develop a large scale demonstration of community-based mangrove conservation. Planting mangroves can help to secure the coastal environment, which can enhance inshore fishery stocks, as well as providing some protection from storms and future sea level rises. Mangroves are also excellent at storing carbon and the researchers will work with the community to help them access new markets for payment for ecosystem services.

o 18 projects such as this have already been funded. The second stage of ESPA will include £16 million of support to large scale consortia in investigating the links between ecosystem services and poverty, water, forestry and biodiversity.

17. What proportion of bilateral programmes does DFID originate and design and how often does DFID fund programmes run by other organisations?

o The majority of DFID bilateral programmes are conceived and designed in partnership with partner Governments. The new Business Case for all expenditure over £400, has been developed to ensure that every penny spent is used for the purposes intended and yields results and impact that provide excellent value for money. A variety of channels are used for the management and delivery of these programmes

o In terms of NGOs delivering DFID funded programmes, please refer to question and answer 15. Bilateral aid delivered through a Multilateral organisation which is shown in the table below is taken from Table 3 on the ‘statistics on international development’ section of the DFID website: http://www.dfid.gov.uk/Documents/publications1/sid2010/table3.xls?epslanguage=en

Extract from DFID Expenditure on Development 2005/06-2009/10

18. In 2006 DFID produced a policy paper entitled ‘DFID’s Approach to the Environment.’ What is the current status of this guidance? Has it been updated or superseded?

The 2006 policy paper ‘DFID’s Approach to the Environment’  no longer reflects DFID policy on environment issues.

19. Aside from the agreed £2.9 billion International Climate Fund, how much money will DFID be allocating to other environmental protection objectives and programmes?

The UK contribution to the GEF’s fifth replenishment from 2010-2014 is £210 million. Overall, 28.6% of the GEF is allocated towards biodiversity. Beyond the GEF, environmental protection objectives will in part be met through other DFID programming, such as the substantial programming in agriculture and livelihoods.

20. What is the UK doing following COP 16 at Cancun to ensure progress in setting up a registry to track international flows of mitigation funding?

a. The UK Government is committed to the highest standards of transparency. We have reported UK Fast Start spend through a UK pamphlet,  EU reports  and online at www.faststartfinance.org .  DFID also reports on climate mitigation    ODA against the Rio Markers, which are published through the OCED DAC.  In order to ensure the efficiency and effectiveness of the registry process in the future, it is important that the work builds as much as possible on existing instruments, processes and institutions.

21. What will the balance between adaptation and mitigation be for the ICF?

o Ministers have endorsed a balanced allocation between adaptation (50%), low carbon development (30%) and forestry (20%), and will keep this split under review. Poor people are the most vulnerable to climate change. Action that reduces emissions and supports low carbon development (mitigation) and action that helps poor people cope with inevitable climate change (adaptation) can both be pro-poor. All ICF spend is ODA and Ministers have agreed that ICF spending decisions will be results driven both in terms of poverty reduction and climate impacts.

22. What will the balance between adaptation and mitigation be for the Green Climate Fund?

o The Green Fund is still in early stages of design.  The terms of reference for the design committee (called the Transitional Committee) give it the 'objective of achieving a balanced allocation between adaptation and mitigation', but do not specify what that balance will be.

23. When do you expect to have a system in placing for tracking the results achieved by the International Climate Fund? Will you set targets for what you expect the International Climate Fund to achieve? How will the results be reported?

o The ICF will be results driven both in terms of poverty reduction and climate impacts. The departments involved in the ICF are developing methodologies and indicators to track impact and value for money of the ICF. DFID's Business Plan 2011 – 2015 commits the Department to developing methodologies and indicators on adaptation, low carbon development and protecting forests by June 2011. These methodologies and indicators will inform the monitoring and evaluation framework of the ICF through which results will be reported. The plan that we expect to publish on ICF implementation by October 2011 will have details on the results we aim to achieve through the ICF. ICF spending Departments, including DFID, will report on the ICF through their annual reports and, where appropriate, their Departmental Business Plans.

19 April 2011