UK nature finance, 2021–2025
Explore how the UK's international climate finance for nature was spent by government department and by individual programme between 2021 and 2025, with the full data available to download.
Nature Department spend
#ICF Nature Spend by Department (2021-2025)
Three government departments deliver UK nature finance:
- Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO)
- Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ)
- Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA)
The visualisations below show how UK climate finance for nature has been spent across departments and programmes over the first four years of the ICF3 commitment period.
Nature department spend observation
- Spend remains concentrated in FCDO, which delivers 61% of total nature ICF spend, compared to 25% for DESNZ and 15% for DEFRA.
- As with overall ICF spend, the first two years of the ICF3 period saw total rates of recorded ICF nature spend fall substantially below the annual average spend required to meet the pledge.
- While aggregate recorded spend then rose significantly in 2023/24 and 2024/25, total spend in 2025/26 will still need to be at least £725.6m in order to meet the UK's £3bn commitment. As of February 2026, the Government continues to state that it is on track to deliver this.
- Despite the five-year ICF3 ending in March 2026 the UK Government has not yet committed to a nature sub-pledge in ICF4, which will commence the following month. Unless any such political commitment is made it is anticipated that the UK rate of international nature finance spend will collapse from April 2026.
Nature programmes
#ICF for nature spend by programme over £20 million (2021-2025)
Top nature programmes by spend
Green Climate Fund (1st replenishment / 2nd replenishment)
FCDO
£405.46 million
Global Environment Facility - 7th/8th replenishment
FCDO
£274.20 million
Scaling Climate Action by Lowering Emissions
DESNZ
£153.88 million
Nature programme spend observation
- The FCDO accounts for the large majority of individual programmes reporting nature ICF, with a total of 91 programmes reporting some nature ICF spend in at least one year of ICF3 (to date). DEFRA recorded nature ICF spend through a total of 21 programmes, with DESNZ recording spend through 11.
- There is a predominant role for multilateral (e.g. Green Climate Fund, Global Environment Fund) and multi-bilateral (e.g. SCALE, Mobilising Finance for Forests, Amazon Fund) programmes in the UK's current nature ICF spend.
- Notably, the Darwin Initiative-the UK's flagship bilateral biodiversity programme-accounts for just 2.4% (£55.2 million) of total nature finance spending.
- The Biodiverse Landscapes Fund (BLF) is a £100m initiative to support nature in six priority landscapes. It is the most prominent bilateral nature-related ODA programme created in the past decade, yet it has received only £19.5m over ICF3 and has now been significantly scaled back following 2025 cuts to the UK aid budget.
Download nature data
#The underlying nature data behind every chart and table on this page is available to download in Excel format.
Programme spend data
Spend broken down by individual programme, including the full list of nature programmes reporting ICF spend and their project-level detail.
Download nature programme dataPDF briefing
A summary briefing of the UK's International Climate Finance for nature, in PDF format.
Download PDF briefingData last updated: August 2026
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