The UK, Germany and USA have today announced new action to scale up protection for the world’s most vulnerable communities against the impacts of climate change.

A package of support, including £120 million in new funding from the UK and €125 million in new funding from Germany, will enable quicker responses for vulnerable people when extreme weather and climate-linked disasters hit.

Pre-arranged financing for vulnerable communities will help build the systems needed to reach the poorest people quickly, such as payments when harvest fail.

This will protect those most at risk and help reduce losses and damage to communities, infrastructure and livelihoods caused by climate change. It comes ahead of the UK’s hosting of the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, in November 2021 which must make progress on helping poor communities adapt to climate change.

The UK and Germany will also use this money to invest in the regional disaster protection schemes across Africa, South East Asia, the Caribbean and Pacific to protect the lives and livelihoods of poor and vulnerable people against climate risks. This support contributes to the InsuResilience Global Partnership’s Vision 2025 and the Risk Informed Early Action Partnership (REAP) – two key global coalitions working to reduce the impact of disasters.

In addition, the USA confirmed it will join the UK, Germany and other G7 countries as a member of the InsuResilience Global Partnership and REAP.

Together, this joint action represents substantial new support for countries on the frontline of climate change and humanitarian disasters.

The severity and frequency of severe weather and climate-linked natural disasters is increasing as climate change worsens. Developing countries, women, girls and other often marginalised groups are worst affected.

This means many of the world’s most vulnerable communities are on the frontline. Extreme weather and slow-onset disasters like drought and rising sea levels not only threaten lives, but can also cause loss of and damage to critical infrastructure, as well as the natural environment. From hurricanes and heavy rainfall in the Caribbean and Pacific, to droughts and failed harvests in Africa, without action, climate change could push more than 100 million people below the poverty line as soon as 2030.

UK Foreign and Development Secretary Dominic Raab said:

Tackling climate change is one of the greatest threats of our time as without action, it could push more than 100 million people below the poverty line as soon as 2030.This joint UK, US and German action will enable quicker responses to extreme weather and climate-linked disasters in countries bearing the brunt of climate change.

German Development Minister Gerd Müller said:

Climate change is a reality – and we must not lose sight of this fact even in these times of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is important that the UK G7 Presidency has made climate action a focus of the summit. As those most responsible for causing climate change, we must assume responsibility for its consequences. Droughts in Africa, floods in Asia – for the poorest, these climate disasters often mean the loss of their livelihoods. But less than 5% of the damage in these countries is covered by insurance. Through our new commitments, we are taking an important step towards insuring, by 2025, 500 million people in developing countries against damage caused by climate change. This means that emergency programmes can provide quick and targeted assistance to those affected when a disaster strikes.

Ambassador Samantha Power, Administrator of USAID said:

Investments that help communities adapt and build resilience to climate change is not just the right thing to do, but the smart thing. Every dollar we invest in adaptation and resilience saves us $3 in humanitarian assistance when crisis strikes.

Nigel Clarke, DPhil, MP, Jamaica’s Minister of Finance and the Public Service, said:

It is increasingly evident that disaster risk financing is central to fiscal and debt sustainability. The Government of Jamaica therefore welcomes the new commitments by the G7 towards disaster risk financing; this will help build resilience to climate change and its fiscal impact. Jamaica is implementing a multi-layered strategy of risk transfer instruments. This ex-ante fiscal planning reduces Jamaica’s sovereign risk premium, and will provide fiscal resources to help finance the emergency costs associated with natural disasters and other climatic shocks.

The new package of action was announced following the G7 Leaders Summit in Carbis Bay, Cornwall, UK. It builds on commitments agreed by G7 countries last month to support efforts to respond to the risk of famine and other humanitarian disasters, as well as the rising threat of loss and damage and to make people safer from disasters through early warning, better preparedness and early action. This is in addition to action to scale up the finance needed to help countries adapt to the impacts of climate change.

• The new support announced today follows G7 Leaders’ commitments to the $100bn Climate Finance goal, particularly to increasing funding for early action and managing of disaster risks.
• The InsuResilience Global Partnership www.insuresilience.org is a global initiative to increase the climate resilience of developing countries and protect the lives and livelihoods of poor and vulnerable people against the impacts of disasters. It brings together more than 100 partners from G20 and V20 countries, civil society, international organisations, the private sector, and academia to achieve its Vision 2025, including to cover 500 million poor and vulnerable people against climate and disaster shocks by 2025. Currently, the InsuResilience Global Partnership is active with 22 programmes in around 100 countries. In 2020 alone, InsuResilience was able to protect 137 million poor and vulnerable people against climate and disaster risks. More information can be found at [www.insuresilience-solutions-fund.org/] (https://www.insuresilience-solutions-fund.org/)
• The Risk Informed Early Action Partnership (REAP) launched at the UN Climate Action Summit in September 2019 to bring together stakeholders across the climate, humanitarian, and development communities with the aim of making 1 billion people safer from disasters by 2025. More information on REAP targets and members can be found at www.early-action-reap.org

Today (Sunday 13th June) G7 leaders have agreed commitments to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030, and tackle deforestation, marine litter and illegal wildlife trade.

At the G7 Leaders’ Summit in Cornwall, countries have come together and agreed a shared G7 Nature Compact. This is a key agreement which brings G7 countries together to address the most pressing international and interlinked challenges of biodiversity loss and climate change. Leaders have also agreed to review progress against the Nature Compact to ensure delivery of its 2030 vision.

This next milestone marks a crucial commitment to supporting global consensus and taking bold action for the delivery of ambitious outcomes for nature in 2021. Climate change is one key driver of biodiversity loss, and protecting, conserving and restoring biodiversity is crucial to addressing climate change.

The G7 Nature Compact commits world leaders to:

• Shift incentives and use all appropriate levers to address unsustainable and illegal activities negatively impacting nature, such as through tackling deforestation by supporting sustainable supply chains, and stepping up efforts to tackle the illegal wildlife trade
• Work to dramatically increase investment in nature from all sources, and to ensure nature is accounted for in economic and financial decision-making – for instance, through drawing on the Dasgupta Review for key actions
• Support and drive the protection, conservation and restoration of ecosystems critical to halt and reverse biodiversity loss and tackle climate change, such as supporting the target to conserve or protect at least 30% of global land and at least 30% of the global ocean by the end of the decade
• Hold themselves to account for taking domestic and global action for nature through driving strengthened accountability and implementation mechanisms of all Multilateral Environmental Agreements to which we are parties

Through this Compact, the UK Government is committing to supporting the global consensus and to taking bold action for delivery of ambitious outcomes for nature in 2021 at the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) COP15 in Kunming and United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) COP26 in Glasgow.

The Prime Minister has also launched the UK’s Blue Planet Fund. The £500 million fund will support countries to tackle unsustainable fishing, protect and restore coastal ecosystems like mangroves and coral reefs, and reduce marine pollution.

Environment Secretary George Eustice said:

For the first time, the G7 has committed to halting and reversing the loss of biodiversity in the next decade.

This is a major step forward on the path to CBD COP15 and COP26 and is a sign of the dedication to accelerate action within the G7 – and beyond – to tackle the interdependent crises of climate change and biodiversity loss.

We have seen major progress this weekend and we welcome the collaboration between global leaders to raise our ambition and remain accountable in this critical decade.

The Compact’s commitments will be embedded in national plans as appropriate, raising ambition wherever possible, and the G7 will hold themselves to account for delivering effective action integrated with that to support climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Through existing G7 mechanisms, including at the G7 Leaders’ Summit in five years, the G7 countries will review options to ratchet up action and ambition, as needed, to ensure delivery of the vision for 2030.

The full G7 Nature Compact can be read online here.

Today at the G7 Leaders’ Summit in Carbis Bay, Cornwall, delegates from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the USA, the UK and the EU pledged to take action to tackle the growing hazard of space debris as our planet’s orbit becomes increasingly crowded.

One of the biggest global challenges facing the space sector is orbital congestion and space debris. There are currently an estimated 900,000 pieces of space debris including old satellites, spent rocket bodies and even tools dropped by astronauts orbiting Earth. Space debris could stay in orbit for hundreds of years and present a real danger to the rapidly increasing number of new satellites being launched each year.

Together they published the following joint statement:

We are committed to the safe and sustainable use of space to support humanity’s ambitions now and in the future.

We recognise the growing hazard of space debris and increasing congestion in earth’s orbit.

As the orbit of our planet is a fragile and valuable environment that is becoming increasingly crowded, which all nations must act together to safeguard, we agree to strengthen our efforts to ensure the sustainable use of space for the benefit and in the interests of all countries.

We welcome the United Nation’s Long Term Sustainability Guidelines and call on others to join us in implementing these guidelines.

We welcome all efforts, public and commercial, in debris removal and on-orbit servicing activities and undertake to encourage further institutional or industrial research and development of these services.

We recognise the importance of developing common standards, best practices and guidelines related to sustainable space operations alongside the need for a collaborative approach for space traffic management and co-ordination.

We call on all nations to work together, through groups like the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, the International Organization for Standardization and the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee, to preserve the space environment for future generations.

Science Minister Amanda Solloway said:

Space enables services that we rely on every single day, from communicating with our loved ones to tracking the effects of climate change. Each nation must unite to strengthen our efforts to ensure its continued use is safe, sustainable and serves everybody.

Today’s announcement is a major milestone in recognising the need to develop common standards on sustainable space operations, and to collaborate on space traffic management and coordination.

Simonetta Di Pippo, Director of the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs, said:

There is an urgent need to stabilise global space operations. We must future-proof activities now to deliver a safe, secure and sustainable space environment for tomorrow. I welcome this clear commitment by G7 leaders to put space sustainability at the heart of the political agenda. Only through such leadership, with all nations working together, will we preserve the space environment for future generations.

The UK is committed to ensuring the sustainability of space and is working alongside global allies to promote space sustainability initiatives. It is the leading contributor to the European Space Agency’s Space Safety programme which provides collaboration and funding opportunities for UK scientists and industry. Delegates from the UK Space Agency have also played a key role in developing and agreeing the United Nation’s Long Term Sustainability Guidelines and funded a project with the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs on raising awareness and capacity building related to the implementation of those Guidelines.

The UK Space Agency recently announced funding to study the feasibility of a UK mission to remove space debris through its Space Surveillance and Tracking (SST) programme. Earlier this year, Oxfordshire-based company Astroscale launched its ‘ELSA-d’ satellite clean-up and decommissioning programme, with its base in Harwell hosting the operations centre for the mission to trial new technology for debris capture and removal.

This Summit was the first gathering of G7 leaders – in fact the first gathering of pretty much any leaders – in almost two years.

And I know the world was looking to us to reject some of the selfishness and nationalist approaches that have marred the initial global response to the pandemic, and to channel all our diplomatic, economic and scientific might into defeating covid for good.

And I do hope we have lived up to some of the most optimistic of hopes and predictions

I should say I am sorry to hear that, owing to their pre-existing commitments, the England football team are not able to watch this press conference live in the way I’m sure they’d like to.

But I hope that, following their resounding victory, they will be able to catch up on the triumphs of the G7 later on.

A week ago I asked my fellow leaders to help in preparing and providing the doses we need to help vaccinate the whole world by the end of 2022.

I’m very pleased to announce that this weekend leaders have pledged over 1 billion doses – either directly or through funding to COVAX – that includes 100 million from the UK, to the world’s poorest countries – which is another big step towards vaccinating the world.

And that’s in addition to everything scientists and governments and the pharmaceutical industry have done so far to roll out one of the largest vaccination programmes in history.

And here I want to mention, in particular, the role the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine – the world’s most popular vaccine, developed 250 miles from where I’m standing today- by scientists who have rightly been given honours by the Queen this weekend.

Today over half a billion people are safe because of the development and production of that vaccine, funded – I may add – by the UK Government. And that number is rising every day.

It is popular, of course, because it is being sold at cost to the world and it was designed for ease of use in mind.

And because of that act of generosity by AstraZeneca who, just to reiterate, are making zero profit on the production of that vaccine, millions more vaccines have been rolled out to the poorest countries in the world. In fact 96% of the vaccines delivered by the COVAX distribution scheme have been Oxford-AZ.

But this weekend our discussions went far beyond defeating the pandemic.

We looked towards the great global recovery our countries have committed to lead, and we were clear that we all need to build back better in a way that delivers for all our people and for the people of the world.

And that means preventing a pandemic like this from ever happening again, apart from anything else by establishing a global pandemic radar which will spot new diseases before they get the chance to spread.

It means ensuring that our future prosperity benefits all the citizens of our countries and indeed all the citizens of the world.

At the G7 Summit this weekend, my fellow leaders helped the Global Partnership for Education – an organisation working to make sure that every child in the world is given the chance of a proper education – reach half of its five-year fundraising goal, including a £430m donation from the UK.

It’s an international disgrace that some children in the world are denied the chance to learn and reach their full potential, and I’m very very pleased that the G7 came together to support that cause.

Because educating all children, particularly girls, is one of the easiest ways to lift countries out of poverty and help them rebound from the coronavirus crisis. With just one additional year of school a girl’s future earnings can increase by 20%.

I’m proud that G7 countries have agreed to get 40 million more girls into school and 20 million more reading by the end of primary school in the next five years, and the money we have raised this week is a fantastic start.

But of course the world cannot have a prosperous future if we don’t work together to tackle climate change.

Later this year the UK will host the COP26 Summit, which will galvanise global action on fighting climate change and create a healthy planet for our children and grandchildren.

G7 countries account for 20% of global carbon emissions, and we were clear this weekend that action has to start with us.

Carbis Bay is one of the most beautiful places in the world as you can see and it was a fitting setting for the first ever net zero G7 Summit.

And while it’s fantastic that every one of the G7 countries has pledged to wipe out our contributions to climate change, we need to make sure we’re achieving that as fast as we can and helping developing countries at the same time.

And what unites the countries gathered here this weekend – not just the G7 but Australia, India, South Africa and South Korea who have joined us (I should say in India’s case joined us virtually) not just our resolve to tackle climate change, but also our democratic values.

It’s not good enough for us to just rest on our laurels and talk about how important those values are. And this isn’t about imposing our values on the rest of the world. What we as the G7 need to do is demonstrate the benefits of democracy and freedom and human rights to rest of the world.

And we can partly achieve that by the greatest feat in medical history – vaccinating the world.

We can do that by working together to stop the devastation that coronavirus has produced from ever occurring again.

And we can do that by showing the value of giving every girl in the world access to 12 years of quality education.

And we can also do that by coming together as the G7 and helping the world’s poorest countries to develop themselves in a way that is clean and green and sustainable

I want to thank finally, the police, everyone who helped organised this summit and all the people not just of Carbis bay (who certainly helped us put the carbs into Carbis Bay), but all the wonderful people of Cornwall for their hospitality. It’s been a fantastic summit and I know that all the other delegations would want to express their thanks as well