Climate Emergency Fund (CEF)

WQ.238/2025

WRITTEN QUESTION TO THE MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT

BY DEPUTY R.S. KOVACS OF ST. SAVIOUR

QUESTION SUBMITTED ON TUESDAY 27th MAY 2025 ANSWER TO BE TABLED ON TUESDAY 3rd JUNE 2025

Question

"With regard to the Climate Emergency Fund (CEF), will the Minister advise –

1. the amount of funding allocated to the Fund each year since its formation, and the total amount assigned to the Fund to date;
2. the sources of funding for each year, the amount allocated from each source, and which of these sources are still active;
3. what activities have been funded by the CEF each year to date, including the amount spent;
4. the current balance of the Fund;
5. the ongoing approved expenses from this Fund for 2025 onwards, broken down by activity and associated cost; and
6. the projected amount to be allocated to, and spent from, the CEF each year from 2026 to 2029?"

Answer

1. The creation of the Climate Emergency Fund (CEF) was approved in accordance with the proposals set out in Annex 3 of the draft Government Plan 2020-2023. See Table 1 below for funding allocations to date. The creation of the CEF pre-dated the development of the Carbon Neutral  Roadmap  (CNR)  which  was  approved  by  the  Assembly  in  April  2022.
2. See Table 1 below for annual sources, amounts and status of CEF funding. It should be noted that receipts from fuel duty and Vehicle Emissions Duty (VED) are transferred to the CEF at quarterly intervals. There are no specific allocations for any of the funds received by the CEF for particular CNR policies or other activities.

Table 1: CEF Sources of funding 2020-2025- all figures rounded to nearest thousand. *2025 allocations to end of Q1

3. Annual CEF expenditure since the fund's inception is set out in Table 2 below. Activities are grouped by the five principal policy groupings within the CNR and approved pre-CNR and other actions.

The CNR outlines the approved policies and allocates a budget for their delivery for the period 2022-2025 as well as the SMART objectives, assumptions, dependencies and deliverables expected against each policy. Appendix 2 of the CNR (pp.87 – 149) provides details of each policy and an overview table can be seen in Part 10 – The Delivery Plan 2022-2025 (pp. 72 – 78 of the CNR).

Table 2: CEF expenditure 2020-2025 - all figures rounded to nearest thousand. *2025 expenditure to 22nd May 2025.

4. The balance of the CEF as of 28th May 2025 is £5,833,000, rounded to nearest thousand.
5. The 2025 CEF expenditure forecast for each of the activity areas is provided in Table 3 below. It should be noted that these figures are provisional and therefore subject to change. See part
   6. for allocations from 2026 onwards.

Table 3: CEF 2025 expenditure forecast - all figures rounded to nearest thousand

(f)  Forecasts for CEF funding allocations and expenditure from 2026 to 2029 will be presented in the forthcoming draft Budget 2026-29 for debate and approval by the Assembly in late 2025.