Aid cash to curb plastic waste: Money from £500m fund will help keep oceans clean in developing countries, ministers say

British aid money will be used to help tackle plastic waste in developing countries, ministers said yesterday.

The £500million Blue Planet Fund will protect the marine environment and reduce poverty.

Some £16million of this fund will be spent on protecting the oceans from pollution and plastic waste. This will in turn fight climate change as it will protect marine species which are responsible for absorbing carbon from the sea.

The Blue Planet Fund is named after the BBC series narrated by Sir David Attenborough.

The £500million Blue Planet Fund will protect the marine environment and reduce poverty Stock

The ocean is a carbon sink which every year absorbs almost a third of global CO2 emissions thanks to marine species such as coral reefs Stock

The money will also help increase marine protection and save coral reefs, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said.

Some £5.7million will be spent on a project in partnership with developing countries to tackle marine pollution and create protected areas. 

Hydrogen boilers 'worse for planet'

Hydrogen-fuelled home boilers would be worse for the environment than existing models that burn natural gas and which the Government wants to phase out, scientists have claimed.

So-called blue hydrogen is expected to form a key part of the Government's plans to fight climate change and ministers have said gas boilers could be banned as soon as 2035.

But the study, from Cornell University in the US, suggests its production – when methane, a key component of natural gas, is split – is 20 per cent more harmful to the environment than burning gas or coal for heat.

The researchers said more greenhouse gases – methane and carbon dioxide – would escape during extraction.

Many environmentalists back green hydrogen instead, which is created by using electricity to split water.

 

The programme will also help countries respond to disasters such as the X-Press Pearl in Sri Lanka – a devastating ship fire which released plastic and toxic chemicals into the sea.

And will reduce poverty by protecting the ocean for those who rely on it. Some £5million will be used to support countries in the Caribbean, Indian and Pacific Ocean to help them prevent the extinction of coral reefs. 

The ocean is a carbon sink which every year absorbs almost a third of global CO2 emissions thanks to marine species such as coral reefs.

The funding was announced in the run-up to the Cop26 global environmental summit in Glasgow this autumn.

Environment Secretary George Eustice said: 'The UK is a global leader in marine protection and will continue to advocate for ambitious climate and ocean action at Cop26. 

'Our shared ocean is a vital resource and provides habitat to precious marine life, as well as supporting the livelihoods of one in every ten people worldwide. 

'The Blue Planet Fund will support many developing countries on the front line of climate change.' 

However, Labour claimed the Government is not 'serious' about tackling the climate crisis because the money is not new. 

Preet Kaur Gill, Labour's international development spokesman, said: 'The money announced is from an existing commitment and is only the first tranche from a fund committed to almost two years ago.'

The Daily Mail has been at the forefront of attempts to reduce the amount of waste in the environment with our Turn the Tide on Plastic campaign. 

The foreign aid budget was cut this year to £10.9billion, reduced from £14.5billion a year before.