What is UK International Climate Finance?

International Climate Finance (ICF) is the part of the UK government's aid budget that supports developing countries to respond to climate change. The UK first began providing ICF in 2011 as part of a collective commitment by developed nations to provide $100 billion annually in climate finance by 2020, a goal that has since been increased to $300 billion per year by 2035.

The UK structures its climate finance in five-year cycles. In 2019, the UK committed to provide £11.6 billion in ICF between 2021 and 2026-known as 'ICF3'.

The UK's Nature Pledge

In advance of hosting COP26 in Glasgow in 2021, the UK made a landmark commitment: £3 billion of the ICF3 budget would be allocated to protect and restore nature, with £1.5 billion specifically for forests.

These pledges represented a step-change in UK climate finance ambition, with the potential to achieve transformative outcomes for nature conservation worldwide. They also responded to strong public support—nature finance is among the most popular categories of UK aid spending with the British public.

The Transparency Problem

Despite this ambitious commitment, there's been a fundamental problem: no clear reporting on how the money has been spent.

Since the nature pledge began in 2021, there has been no recurring public disclosure of spending totals or programme details. The UK stopped publishing consolidated project-level climate finance data in 2020 and now only reports through UN frameworks with a two-year lag.

This lack of transparency makes it impossible to track progress, understand priorities, or ensure the money supports effective conservation.

About This Tracker

For the first time, this tracker reveals where the UK's £3 billion nature commitment has actually gone. Using data obtained through Freedom of Information requests covering 2021-2025, we provide the transparency that's been missing—allowing stakeholders to understand how UK nature finance is being spent and holding government accountable to its promises.

What We Found

Specific programme-level reporting of UK ICF flows is currently poor, and consistent public reporting of nature and forests flows on a project basis is non-existent.

Following the UK's exit from the EU, the UK has ceased to publish consolidated project-level information on its international climate finance flows on an annual basis, with the last EU-mandated reporting taking place in 2020 (for 2019 spend).

The UK now only reports its international climate finance flows on an itemised basis through the biannual UNFCCC reporting framework (undertaken with a two-year lag), meaning that the UK government does not currently intend to release official figures for UK ICF spend in 2023 and 2024 until late 2026, representing a substantial regression from prior established reporting practice.

Reporting Gaps

• No consolidated reporting since 2020 - The UK government has not published consolidated project-level information on its international climate finance flows on an annual basis since 2020.
• No nature-specific disclosure - Since the introduction of a specific nature finance commitment in 2021 there has been no recurring public reporting of either total or programme-level nature spend.
• Two-year reporting lag - Official figures for 2023 and 2024 spending won't be released until late 2026.

Spending Patterns

• Slow start, late surge- The first two years of the ICF3 period saw total rates of recorded ICF nature spend fall substantially below the annual average required to meet the pledge.
• £843.5m still needed- While spending rose significantly in 2023/24 and 2024/25, at least £843.5m must be spent in 2025/26 to meet the £3bn commitment.
• Multilateral focus- Multilateral and multi-bilateral programming dominates UK nature ICF spend, with flagship bilateral programmes like Darwin Initiative playing minimal roles.

To promote effective public and civil society engagement regarding the UK's international climate finance spending, greater transparency is essential. The following recommendations would bring UK ICF reporting in line with international best practices and enable proper scrutiny of how public funds are being used to address the climate and nature crisis.

Publish annual itemised reports

What: The FCDO should be mandated to publish an itemised list of all UK ICF spend (including spend under the nature and forests ringfences) by calendar and financial year, within six months of the respective year close, in an accessible spreadsheet format (csv/xls).

Why: Timely, detailed reporting would enable meaningful oversight and allow civil society to engage constructively with UK climate finance programming while decisions are still relevant.

Integrate with aid statistics

What: Include a column for ICF status within the project-level disclosure reported annually through the UK aid statistics reporting process.

Why: This simple addition would make it easy to track climate finance within the broader aid reporting framework that already exists.

Report on results

What: Publish an itemised list of all the projects contributing to total current reported ICF results by year and Key Performance Indicator (KPI) value on an annual basis as part of the ICF results reporting process.

Why: The public deserves to know not just where money is going, but whether it's achieving its intended impact on nature protection and restoration.

Why this matters

This lack of transparency inhibits efforts to understand and improve UK aid for nature, and ensure it is oriented towards the most effective forms of grant financing for nature protection and restoration.

With nature and forests being one of the most popular categories of UK aid spending with the British public, citizens have a right to understand how their money is being spent.