David Cameron has insisted that Britain will be doing the right thing by pledging hundreds of millions of pounds to a United Nations "green bank" to help poor countries prepare for the impact of global warming.
The Prime Minister faced more rumblings of discontent from the Tory backbenches as Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) called into question the potential £650 million the UK could pledge to the Green Climate Fund.
An announcement on the funding commitment is expected at a pledging conference in Berlin on November 20.
Sir Edward said: "Do you agree that you can be a good, loyal, hard-working, taxpaying Conservative and worry whether the best way to help the poor of the world is to spend £650 million on a climate fund taken out of an aid budget that increased by 28 per cent last year?
"Do you agree that those concerns need to be reassured?"
Mr Cameron replied: "First of all we made some very clear promises in our manifesto that we would lift our aid budget to reach the long-term target of 0.7 per cent of GNI (gross national income). We made that promise and I think that breaking our promise to the poorest people in the world would not be right."
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