Comment: Revitalised global leadership from Britain can make a difference at a deeply troubling and fractured time for world affairs
Edward Davey is head of the World Resources Institute Europe UK Office.
In three vital and interrelated areas – climate, development and nature – the next UK government could play a significant role in driving progress at a critical time.
It needs to start office on day one with a plan that positions the UK ahead of key summits on those issues – summits that will have a critical bearing on people, planet, and future generations. The time to start preparing is now.
The NATO summit begins within days of the UK general election now planned for July 4. The year ends with G20 meetings in Brazil, a global biodiversity summit (COP16) in Colombia, and the COP29 climate conference in Azerbaijan. A new UK government could play an important role in rebuilding trust and make a positive contribution to the world by adopting far-sighted positions on climate, development and nature.
On climate, the next government could immediately signal its intent by comprehensively stepping up its efforts to meet its own national climate commitments, after a period of drift and uncertainty. There is no more powerful message from the UK to the cause of global climate action than the country decisively implementing its own pledges, through concerted action on green energy, transport, infrastructure and land use.
Progress at home needs to be matched in real time by leadership on the international stage in negotiating an appropriately ambitious and credible ‘new collective quantified goal’ on climate finance.
Rich nations meet $100bn climate finance goal – two years late
A strong finance outcome at COP29 would acknowledge the historic responsibility for climate change from some of the wealthiest nations, including the UK, while ensuring that all countries play their full part in mobilising the flows of public as well as private finance needed to transition to a 1.5 degree-aligned, resilient and nature-positive economy. Successful resolution of the finance negotiations this year in Baku would open up the possibility for a more ambitious round of climate action en route to COP30 in Belem, Brazil in November 2025.
Development finance
On international development, the UK can move fast by upholding and restoring its development finance commitments, including to some of the world’s poorest people; by updating its toolkit to meet today’s interlinked development, climate and nature challenges; and by using all of the means at its disposal (including debt relief, multilateral development bank reform, and capital increases) to drive global financial architecture reform and a successful replenishment of the International Development Association 21 later this year.
The UK can also lead the way in pressing for international support to be integrated and aligned behind countries’ own inclusive, green development plans; and by making the case for multilateral trade reform aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement.