Barry Gardiner – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barry Gardiner on 2016-06-14.
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, how many officials are employed in (a) his Department’s London offices and (b) the UK’s global diplomatic network work on climate security.
James Duddridge
As of January 2016 149 full-time equivalent staff resource was spent on our Climate Change/Low Carbon Economy/Energy Security work across our network of 268 offices in 168 countries. Of these, 72 staff were working full-time on Climate Change and Energy issues.
As of June 2016 nine full-time equivalent staff in London work directly on climate change issues.
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office allocation of resource is kept under regular review as staff and local priorities change, so there is a quite regular flux in numbers and locations. For example, in the run up to COP21, there was an increase in Ministerial and network engagement related to the Paris negotiations, to build support for a successful agreement.