Climate action will be central to “all” foreign policy, David Lammy will say on Tuesday, as the new government seeks to rebrand the UK’s international image.
On Tuesday, the foreign secretary will use his first major speech in his new role to address the climate and nature crises and how they intersect with geopolitics, conflict and insecurity.
While the threat may not feel as “urgent” as terrorism or autocratic regimes, it is more “systemic, pervasive, and accelerating towards us”, he is expected to say.
“Action on the climate and nature crisis will be central to all the Foreign Office does,” Mr Lammy is expected add.
“This is critical given the scale of the threat, but also the scale of the opportunity.”
The new Labour government is trying to reinvigorate UK energy policy, and re-establish the country’s position as a global leader on climate action – prominent when the UK hosted the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, but watered down under then prime minister Rishi Sunak.
Its flagship energy policy is to reach 100% clean electricity – which means replacing coal and gas with renewables and nuclear – by 2030.
The target is not drastically different to – but five years sooner than – the Tories’ 2035 target.
The government now wants to use this target as a way to lobby other countries to decarbonise faster.
The Foreign Office said it would do this via a new “Global Clean Power Alliance”, which will attempt to increase funding for other countries to “leapfrog” fossil fuels in favour of clean power systems.
However, as yet the alliance has no fresh funding nor other members, though the Foreign Office sees it as more of a diplomatic vehicle to form closer ties with other countries on climate.
“Today we are firing the starting gun on forming this new coalition,” Mr Lammy will say.
“We need to accelerate the rollout of renewable energy across the globe in the way that this government is doing at home.”
International climate campaigner Harjeet Singh, of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative, said the move “sends a clear signal that climate and nature are back on [the UK’s] agenda”.
But “true leadership goes beyond speeches and announcements”, he said, calling for concrete action, cash and technologies to help developing nations phase out fossil fuels and cope with climate impacts.
About £2trn a year will be needed every year by 2030 to pay for developing countries to bring about the changes needed, according to a report co-written by UK economist Lord Nicholas Stern.
That financial black hole for developing nations is not only down to the size of economies, but because they are often saddled with debt, are paying for climate impacts they usually did not cause, and because it is more expensive for them to borrow money.
A row is intensifying over who should pay for future climate measures in these countries, which tend to have contributed little to climate change but are suffering more, according to analysis by thinktank IIED.
A current commitment by rich polluting countries to give developing nations $100bn (£75.7bn) a year in “climate finance” expires in 2025.
The next funding pot is due to be agreed at the United Nations climate summit COP29 in Azerbaijan in November, but preliminary talks have been embroiled in disputes.
Nations have been unable to agree who should pay in and who should be on the receiving end, nor the annual sum.
Mohamed Adow, director of thinktank Power Shift Africa, said the UK’s new alliance sounded “promising”, but warned it would “only be effective if backed up with funding and resources”.
The COP29 summit in Azerbaijan will be “focussing on increasing climate finance to vulnerable countries… an important moment to prove this alliance is not just warm words, but backed up with action”, he said.
Mr Lammy will also reinstate the UK climate envoy role – axed by Rishi Sunak – and create a new nature envoy.