Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps she has taken to ensure official development assistance supports renewable energy projects.

The UK is committed to unlocking affordable and clean energy and contributing to the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 7. UK Official Development Assistance (ODA) increasingly supports renewable energy projects – between 2011-12 and 2018-19 UK aid has provided 26 million people with improved access to clean energy and installed 1,600 MW of clean energy capacity, avoiding 16 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.

DFID supports a number of ongoing programmes with a clean energy focus, such as the Africa Clean Energy programme, which works in over 15 African countries to increase deployment of off-grid renewable energy, by supporting businesses and governments to improve market conditions for the private sector.

The doubling of the UK’s International Climate Finance (ICF) contribution to £11.6 billion from 2021/22 to 2025/26 will enable the UK to do even more to accelerate the development and adoption of low carbon technologies.

The ICF increase includes up to £1 billion for the Ayrton Fund, which will focus on developing and testing new technology in areas such as energy storage, new cooling technologies, next generation solar, and technologies for industrial decarbonisation.

As announced by the Prime Minister at the UK-Africa Investment Summit in January, the UK will no longer provide any new direct ODA, investment, export credit or trade promotion support for thermal coal mining or coal power plants overseas.