Climate change is a new area of public policy that is expected will have a significant impact on national economic development and directly on people’s lives and livelihoods. However, at present there is limited understanding of what the cost of responding to climate change will be. An important starting point is to identify the financial resources that are currently being spent by government to fund climate change-related activities. This can provide an indication of how far the national response to climate change has evolved. Looking forward, the expected rapid growth of this expenditure will raise governance and management challenges for implementing agencies, which should be considered in the design and execution of national climate change programmes.