On Tuesday in Parliament a session was set out by Chris Law from the SNP who focused on this headline and his initial comment is “I beg to move, That this House has considered climate finance for tackling loss and damage.” and apart from the end of the session when Leo Docherty who is the Parliamentary Under Secretary for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office who contributed, all of the other people who spoke were not part of the Conservative Party. It was significantly covered by SNP and Labour MPs but there was also a contribution from our MP, Caroline Lucas who is the Green Party MP. The first few words from Chris Law were as follows

July was the hottest month in global history. In three months the world will gather in one of the hottest regions of the world for COP28. All summer we have heard about and seen the impacts that climate change is having—impacts that will only get worse—and the need for urgent action could not be clearer. Simply put, this is the biggest, most existential threat to humanity and our planet, and I put it on the record that I am utterly disappointed that not one MP from the governing Conservative party is here other than the Minister.

And after his initial statement which included a number of other comments, Caroline Lucas was the next person to contribute with this comment.

I congratulate the hon. Member on securing this important debate. When it comes to finance for loss and damage, does he agree with me that that finance has to be new and additional, not redirected from existing budgets? If we are looking for places where we might find such new and additional finance, if we put the polluter pays principle at the heart of this debate, we could, for example, look at the grotesque profits of the oil and gas companies, which amounted to a staggering $134 billion globally last year, or the billions that go into fossil fuel subsidies. Does he agree with me that that would be a good place to start to get the money we need for such a vital fund?

And Chris then commented.

Not only do I completely agree, but I suspect my papers have been leaked because I was about to come on to that point. I completely agree that new and additional finance is key and I look forward to what the Minister will say. I will touch on that topic in more depth shortly.

There is no doubt the UK has contributed significantly to the climate emergency through its historical greenhouse gas emissions. From 1750 to the present day it is the seventh highest CO2 emitter with just over 3% of estimated historical emissions. In contrast, the entire continent of Africa has a 3% share of cumulative CO2 emissions and Oceania only 1%—two of the regions already the most devastated by the climate catastrophe.

The whole of the discussion can be obtained from here.