David Lammy vows to put climate action at centre of UK foreign policy

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UK foreign secretary David Lammy will vow to place climate action and nature at the heart of Britain’s foreign policy, as he announces the creation of new special representatives in each area.

In a speech on Tuesday, Lammy will frame climate change and the nature crisis as the defining geopolitical challenge of the era, warning that it is a worse problem than terrorism.

“The threat may not feel as urgent as a terrorist or an imperialist autocrat, but it is more fundamental. It is systemic, pervasive, and accelerating towards us,” he will say.

Lammy will add: “While I am foreign secretary, action on the climate and nature crisis will be central to all the Foreign Office does. This is critical given the scale of the threat, but also the scale of the opportunity.”

Tackling climate change is essential to securing the UK’s security and prosperity, he will say.

He will also announce he is “firing the starting gun” on Labour’s pledge to build a global clean power alliance, in which the UK will facilitate the sharing of knowledge and technologies to help more countries decarbonise and to bolster innovation.

Labour’s focus on the green transition, including the creation of GB Energy, a new state-owned company investing in clean energy, comes in marked contrast to the last Tory administration, which rowed back on key environmental targets.

While scepticism about the cost and timeframe of achieving net zero carbon emissions has grown on the right of British politics in recent years, UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has insisted his government will become the first major economy to decarbonise its energy system by 2030.

Lammy will say on Tuesday that the UK “will leverage that ambition to build an alliance committed to accelerating the clean energy transition”, as he argues for the importance of accelerating the rollout of renewable energy across the world.

The alliance will aim to help other nations “leapfrog fossil fuels and transition to power systems with renewables at their core”, by expediting the supply of critical minerals and injecting impetus into expanding energy grids and storage, according to the Foreign Office.

It added that the UK will push for ambitious pledges on climate finance and reduced emissions at the UN COP29 climate summit, taking place in Azerbaijan in November.

Lammy will reinstate the UK special representative for climate change, a role scrapped by former prime minister Rishi Sunak last year, and create a new special representative for nature.