The UK announced new funding today to support African governments to roll-out critical adaptation projects so at-risk communities can adapt to the impact of extreme weather and changing climates.

COP26 President Alok Sharma announced the new UK support for the Africa Adaptation Acceleration Program (AAAP) – an initiative endorsed by African Union leaders and led by the African Development Bank, Global Centre on Adaptation and the Africa Adaptation Initiative, to back African-led plans to accelerate resilience-building across Africa.

Today’s announcements came on the second day of COP26, the two-week UN Climate Change Conference, where world leaders are meeting with the aim to agree how to tackle the urgent threat of global climate change.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson also today announced the UK is offering an ambitious new guarantee mechanism – the ‘Room to Run’ guarantee – to the African Development Bank (AfDB). This is expected to unlock up to £1.45 billion ($2 billion) worth of new financing for projects across the continent, half of which will help countries adapt to the impacts of climate change.

UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said:

More finance for African nations to develop and adapt to climate change is important as these countries find themselves on the frontline of impacts. It is a huge investment opportunity.

By combining our cash with other donors and businesses, and working with partners such as the African Development Bank to direct funding into green projects, today we are delivering on our commitment to African-led climate adaptation.

These were part of a package of UK aid programmes announced today to support and scale-up African adaptation to climate change, including:

• A new partnership with the UK’s world-leading Met Office to boost weather forecasting and early-warning systems so people living at risk of droughts or floods can take action in advance of climate shocks – such as providing early storm warnings so fishing communities on Lake Victoria can take action that saves lives.

• A new five-year Shock Response Programme to help vulnerable communities living in Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger – where 80% of the population rely on agriculture and livestock for an income – to be more resilient to cope with climate shocks. Strengthening early-warning systems, the programme will build government systems to respond to crisis earlier and reduce the need for humanitarian assistance.

• Delivering on the G7 disaster risk finance commitment in June, with UK support to help countries get drought and storm insurance so they can respond quickly when disasters strike. We and other donors will work together to scale the African regional insurance scheme to cover $1bn of drought, flood and storm risk each year from 2025/6.

• The announcement of a landmark programme of innovative climate research that will turn new discoveries into actionable solutions to reduce the risks from climate change. Elements of the programme launched today will focus on Africa, to ensure science is the foundation of decision-making as the continent adapts to the changing climate.

UK Minister for Africa Vicky Ford said:

For communities across Africa, the impact of climate change is being felt right now. From cyclones in Southern Africa to locusts in East Africa, changing weather patterns are already having catastrophic impacts for communities living across the continent, impacting lives and jobs. This is despite African nations being responsible for just 2-3% of global emissions.

New support announced today will enable African countries to adapt to a changing climate and build resilience to the impacts of climate change. This is essential if communities and countries are to thrive in an uncertain future.

The UK is a long-standing supporter of Africa’s adaptation to climate change, with around half of the UK’s £2.7 billion ($3.7 billion) adaptation budget between 2016 and 2020 spent in Africa.

The £143.5 million of programmes to support African countries to adapt to the impact of extreme weather and changing climate announced today include:

• £20 million to the Africa Adaptation Acceleration Program (AAAP). This is a $25 billion joint initiative endorsed by African Union leaders and led by the African Development Bank, Global Centre on Adaptation and the Africa Adaptation Initiative, to support African countries in designing and implementing transformational adaptation of their economies and post-COVID recovery development paths.

• £42 million of adaptation allocations under the new Africa Regional Climate and Nature Programme (ARCAN). This will include support to the World Bank to support cooperation on the management and development of shared water resources; to the Met Office’s WISER3 programme to improve the uptake of weather and climate information; and technical assistance to African partners to integrate climate considerations into policy making and access and utilise climate finance to benefit those most vulnerable.

• At least £22 million of premium financing support to help African countries pay for drought insurance, delivering on the £120 million commitment made by the UK at Carbis Bay for premium financing and investments into the regional risk pools in Africa, Caribbean, South East Asia and Pacific.

• £19.5 million for the Shock Response Programme in the Sahel, including support to the World Bank to strengthen government social protection systems in Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger that improve people’s ability to cope when shocks occur; and support to the Centre for Disaster Protection to improve use of early warning systems and disaster risk financing.

• The UK has committed £40 million to the Climate Adaptation and Resilience research programme (CLARE) to support action-focused research to inform development in a changing climate in Africa. CLARE is jointly funded by the UK and Canada. It will generate new knowledge, practical tools and approaches to support those most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and related natural hazards, such as floods, droughts and heatwaves.

• In addition: A new ‘Room to Run’ guarantee to the African Development Bank (AfDB) is expected to unlock up to £1.45bn ($2bn) worth of new financing for projects across the continent, half of which will help countries adapt to the impacts of climate change. For example, this finance is expected to support the AfDB’s work on generating high-quality climate data to help countries plan for future impacts, building resilient infrastructure and helping farmers increase their resilience to drought. This will support the objectives of the Africa Adaptation Acceleration Programme. The guarantee is subject to Parliamentary notification and final African Development Bank approval. We expect the guarantee to be live from early 2022, following final scrutiny processes and the signing of formal agreements.

• According to the World Bank, climate change could reduce GDP by 6% in many African countries by 2050, and up to 132 million people could be pushed into extreme poverty by 2030.

• The UK has also doubled its international climate finance to £11.6 billion over five years – with a balance between adaptation and mitigation.

• Adaptation, including increasing finance for adaptation, has been central to the UK’s COP26 Presidency – under the UK’s incoming presidency, finance providers have committed to ambitious increases which collectively amount to billions in additional finance for adaptation compared to 2020 levels.

Let me thank President Biden and President von der Leyen for hosting this meeting and you’re absolutely right that we began this idea with the Build Back Better partnership in Carbis Bay.

To keep 1.5 degrees in sight, to reach global net zero

and to protect vulnerable countries from the impacts of climate change

requires the development of new clean and green infrastructure.

And this presents a huge opportunity to turn our struggle against climate change into a global mission for jobs and growth.

In the UK, through our net zero strategy, we’re pioneering a green industrial revolution,

with public investment leveraging billions of pounds of private funding into whole new industries

from offshore wind to carbon capture and storage

allowing us in the UK to level up our whole country with thousands of new green jobs.

And by partnering with developing and emerging economies to invest in climate-smart infrastructure,

and meeting our $100 billion climate finance commitment

we can go on to unlock trillions, when it’s tens of trillions or hundreds of trillions as Mark Carney would say, of private finance,

to do something similar worldwide.

So our pursuit of global net zero can drive global levelling up,

helping developing economies fast track their way to a more prosperous, clean and green future.

So the UK wholeheartedly supports the principles that President Biden has set out,

working in partnership to create the highest standards of climate-resilient infrastructure,

rooted in our shared democratic values of transparency, inclusivity and collaboration,

and led by the host countries, responding to their needs.

And I welcome the work of Mark Carney and others on creating what we call “country platforms” to help connect pipelines of green infrastructure projects with the vast private capital looking to invest in net zero.

The UK is proud to contribute to these efforts today with our Clean Green Initiative.

By taking our green industrial revolution global,

we’re investing over £3 billion,

and mobilising a similar amount of private finance

to support technologies like drought-resistant agriculture where investors have been reluctant to take on the risks alone.

We’re investing in green bonds for renewable energy in Vietnam,

and solar power in Burkina Faso, Pakistan, Nepal and Chad.

We’re offering guarantees to the World Bank and the African Development Bank,

to unlock up to £2.2bn billion of new finance for green infrastructure across India and Africa.

And we’re working with President Ramaphosa to deliver his ambitious vision for faster, greener growth,

helping to lead an $8.5 billion partnership to decarbonise what is currently the most carbon intensive energy system in the world,

and by choking off international finance for coal.

I look forward to working with all of you as we take forward these investments in clean, green infrastructure

And this is like one of those moments in the story of humanity when everybody is making the same intellectual breakthrough at the same time in seeing the way forward, in leveraging in private finance – we have the Global Gateway, we have the One Planet Initiative, we have our Clean Green Initiative, we have Build Back Better World, we have GFANZ- everybody is now on the same thing, it’s time to bring it all together so this can also become the moment we get real on levelling up the world,

securing a cleaner, greener and more prosperous future for everyone.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi jointly launched a new flagship international initiative today (2 November 2021), at the COP26 World Leaders Summit, backed by over 80 countries, to dramatically accelerate the global transition to a clean powered world.

Jointly led by the UK and India, the new initiative, called “Green Grids Initiative – One Sun One World One Grid” (GGI-OSOWOG), will accelerate the development and deployment of interconnected electricity grids across continents, countries and communities, and improve energy access of the poorest through mini-grids and off-grid solutions.

It features as one of the leading initiatives under the Glasgow Breakthroughs also launched at the clean innovation and technology event, part of a new joint plan that will see countries and businesses coordinate and strengthen their climate actions every year in polluting sectors to dramatically scale and speed up the deployment of clean technologies and drive down costs globally.

In launching the initiative, the two Prime Ministers unveiled the ‘One Sun Declaration’ setting out a shared vision of harnessing the full potential of clean power globally through much greater interconnection of electricity grids across continents, countries and communities, including mini-grids and off-grid solutions to ensure no one is left without access to energy.

To meet the goals of the Paris Agreement and limit global warming to within 1.5C, the world will need to transition to clean power, increasing the global reliance on renewable energy, like solar and wind power. Transitioning to this clean powered future will require developing an electricity infrastructure that is capable of coping with far greater shares of variable renewable energy, while meeting growing power demands securely, reliably and affordably.

The GGI-OSOWOG will help make this happen, by bringing together a global coalition of energy grid stakeholders, including governments and businesses, to accelerate the expansion of energy grids across regions and continents and create the foundations for universal access to sustainable energy. This will ensure the infrastructure is in place for the whole world to be powered by renewable energy, as part of the global push to realise the clean energy transition. 

Keeping 1.5C alive means global emissions will need to be cut in half by 2030. Achieving this will require a dramatic acceleration in innovation and deployment of clean energy solutions, and on a global scale. The International Energy Agency’s recent analysis calls for a tripling in investment in grid expansion and modernisation from $260bn to $800bn annually by 2030.

The initiative will help to mobilise financial and technical resources to advance grid developments, and also promote the sharing of existing expertise and best practice across the globe. This international collaboration will be key to making the clean energy transition faster, cheaper and easier for all.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said:

The UK is working hand in hand with our friends in India to transform the future of the power sector and ensure clean and reliable electricity is accessible everywhere by the end of this decade.

It’s fantastic that over 80 countries have backed our newly launched Green Grids Initiative, whose collaboration will not only see greater growth, jobs and investment in our global green future, but also make sure no one is left without access to energy.

Prime Minister of India, Mr Narendra Modi said at the launch:

The One Sun One World One Grid and Green Grids Initiative is an idea whose time has come. If the world has to move to a clean and green future, these interconnected transnational grids are going to be critical solutions. I congratulate the International Solar Alliance and the UK COP Presidency for bringing it nearer to implementation.

The GGI-OSOWOG is a transformational new programme, with the goal of making universal access to renewable energy a reality, by ensuring that clean power is the most affordable and reliable option for all countries to meet their energy needs efficiently by 2030. This will help all of us to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement and keep the target of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees alive, while also stimulating green investment and supporting millions of jobs worldwide.