British taxpayers have paid £52m in foreign climate aid towards a ‘road to nowhere’ slicing through the pristine Amazon jungle.
It is just one of hundreds of schemes funded through the International Climate Finance initiative (ICF) which will spend a staggering £11.6bn in foreign aid on behalf of the British taxpayer by the end of this financial year.
The projects have been condemned as ‘an insult to the British public’ who have had to tighten their belts for years because of austerity measures and face record breaking tax levies in this month’s Budget.
Devised by the Tories but carried on with gusto by Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, the ICF funds climate projects in developing countries.
Ahead of the Cop30 climate summit, the Telegraph newspaper has revealed how scores of ICF projects have not only been beset with claims of corruption and waste but are frequently only tenuously connected to the climate cause they claim to espouse.
Its seven month investigation unveiled vast sums of taxpayer money being spent on ludicrous projects funded by ICF money include a push to stop ocean plastic pollution in landlocked African countries and the distribution of free condoms in the Congo to try to stop deforestation by slowing population growth.
The Amazon construction project – costing £140m in total – cuts through the sparsely populated South American country of Guyana – poverty stricken until it struck oil.
Once grandiose plans for a road from the country’s capital Georgetown to neighbouring Brazil were abandoned in favour of a 75 mile road from a mining town several hours south of the capital apparently pointlessly leading to a tiny village.
The Amazon rainforest (pictured) covers much of northwestern Brazil and extends into Colombia, Peru as well as other South American countries
Devised by the Tories but carried on with gusto by Energy Secretary Ed Miliband (pictured), the ICF funds climate projects in developing countries
Construction on the ‘road to nowhere’ courtesy of the £52m gift from the British taxpayer and a loan from the Caribbean Development Bank, only started in December 2022 after long delays– and fraud allegations.
It was after the 2019 discovery of huge offshore oil reserves that eyes turned towards Guyana, which was reclassified as a ‘high-income’ country by the World Bank in 2023.
The project was due to be completed next month but so far just 46 miles of its 75 mile length have been built.
The ICF justifies its generous gift as fulfilling one of its key aims – helping regions to adapt to the impacts of climate change – because the road is replacing a dirt trail which was impassable when the rains brought floods every December.
But Sydney Allicock, leader of an indigenous community on an as yet unbuilt stretch of the route, warns that the road may be ‘good for business and tourism but will also see an increase in the drugs trade and trafficking in persons’.
‘We are looking at ways we can safeguard our indigenous communities, our culture, our foods, the way we use the forest and our traditional medicines.’
Meanwhile the Guyanese government has pledged it will push ahead and make sure that the road ends at the border, not in the middle of nowhere.
An advert by Guyana’s oil industry publication ominously celebrates the road ‘soon linking South America’s oil giants, boost trade and integration’.
Lord Mackinlay dissed the project, suggesting it was not ‘a sensible use’ of taxpayers’ money
Lord Mackinlay, a Conservative peer and director of the think tank The Global Warming Policy Foundation, said: ‘The mind boggles at how anyone could have thought these projects were a sensible use of taxpayers’ money.
‘They are an insult to the British public, who rightfully demand that their taxes are spent on their priorities and are suffering under the highest tax and national debt burden in a generation.
‘When you have people struggling to choose between heating and eating, these warped priorities make a mockery of their hardship.’
