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Climate Change: Central America

Answer

DECC co-operates with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) across its range of international work on climate change: demonstrating leadership domestically and through the EU; building the case for global ambition in key countries, supporting the development of low carbon resilient economies, and ensuring progress within-the international negotiations. This includes working with countries according to their individual circumstances.

In the case of Central America, FCO posts have made use of their bi-lateral funds to increase public awareness of issues in their host countries, including the effects of climate change and the need for international action. These projects are diverse and include climate change education in Belize, biodiversity protection work in Costa Rica and a regional forum on climate change challenges, held in San Salvador.

In addition, the UK has provided £15 million of climate finance to the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility. This facility assists developing countries in their efforts to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and to foster conservation, sustainable management of forests, and enhancement of forest carbon stocks (all activities commonly referred to as "REDD+") by providing value to standing forests.

A significant proportion of Central American countries are already participants in the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility. These include Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Panama, Nicaragua and Guatemala. Further details on the specific activities supported in Central American countries can be found here:

http://www.forestcarbonpartnership.org/redd-country-participants

The UK has also provided £100 million of climate finance to the Scaling Up Renewable Energy Program (SREP) in low income countries. This is part of the Climate Investment Funds. The SREP supports a number of pilot countries, including Honduras, to scale up the deployment of renewable energy solutions and expand renewables markets. Further details on the specific activities supported in Honduras can be found here:

https://www.climateinvestmentfunds.org/cifnet/?q=country/honduras

The UK Government has taken action to increase public awareness of the likely effects of climate change. This included funding the Met Office Hadley Centre to

produce a map in 2011 outlining some of the impacts that may occur if the global average temperature rises by 4 °C (7 °F) above the pre-industrial climate average. The map showed that this average rise will not be spread uniformly across the globe and gave an indication of what the likely implications could be for different parts of the world, including Central America.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

157083; 563 cc939-940W

Session

2013-14

Subjects

Climate change Central America

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk