To meet the £11.6bn target by 2026, government officials have calculated that it would have to spend 83% of the Foreign Office’s official development assistance budget on the international climate fund. Civil servants said in the leaked document that this “would squeeze out room for other commitments such as humanitarian and women and girls”.

It also claimed that factors such as Ukraine and debt relief could make it even more difficult to meet the target. This is because the government has cut international aid spending to 0.5% of gross national income since the announcement was made, squeezing budgets across the board, and because ministers did not spend most of the money allocated to the climate fund over the past few years, leaving the majority to be spent by 2026.

Eoin Treacy's view

It seems the number one rule of government is if you do not spend your budget, it will be taken away. The troubling reality for aspirational spending is promises are easy to make when coffers are flush and difficult to sustain when they are not. Climate change is a tomorrow problem, even if the timing of this leak coincided with the highest recorded average global temperature. The second rule of politics is timing is everything.