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Costs to attend Cop28 rocketed after the Guernsey delegation moved from a Premier Inn to stay in luxury hotel apartments.
Responding to formal questions about spending on travel costs this term, Policy and Resources revealed a change in plans when attending the climate change conference in Dubai for “security reasons”.
Deputies Jonathan Le Tocq and Lindsay de Sausmarez jetted out to the conference where they stayed for six and seven nights respectively.
They and two civil servants, who stayed for five nights, were located in the Mercure Hotel Apartments Dubai Barsha Heights, accommodation that cost a total of £9,709.30 for the party.
Its website describes the hotel as "41 floors of understated elegance".
"Fitted with 1,015 suites and apartments, pick from an array of contemporary, redesigned rooms looking over the city or skyline or check into comfortable apartment spaces created to give you a home away from home feel, but better. Throw in a workout or two at the squash court or fitness center, while younger kids can enjoy playtime at the dedicated kids club."
In total the trip cost £16,050 when flights and expenses are included, P&R has confirmed in answers to Deputy Chris Le Tissier.
Pictured: Deputy Chris Le Tissier has asked each States committee how much it has spent on off-island travel so far this term.
Ahead of the climate change conference, Deputy Le Tocq went public to defend the trip after online criticism: "I'm afraid we can't ignore the UN's COP initiatives. For starters, most Free Trade Agreements our businesses want us to sign up to require us to be engaged with COP standards such as the Paris agreement."
Guernsey Finance also had a delegation at the conference.
Media reports ahead of the event, which opened on Friday 30 November 2023, suggested hotel rates would be 20 per cent higher than normal.
For example, a room at the Leva Hotel would have cost £221 for the first night of the event.
To book the Premier Inn Dubai Barsha Heights for the same period for seven nights this year would cost just £516, or £74 a night.
Breaking down Deputy de Sausmerez's seven night stay, which totalled £2,703, the per night cost averaged at £386.
A contribution to the accommodation costs was made by Economic Development of £3,349.64, this is detailed in expenses data as being because of "change in hotel with UK delegation for security reasons."
General expenses for the trip, including taxis, food and drink, amounted to £455.74.
Both deputies flew out from Gatwick to Dubai with Emirates on economy costing £485.
Deputy Le Tocq returned economy to Heathrow on British Airways on 8 December at a cost of £465.80, while Deputy de Sausmarez came back the next day to Heathrow with Emirates on a £483 economy ticket.
Pictured: Deputies Le Tocq and de Sausmarez attended the COP28 summit in December.
Deputy Le Tocq held P&R's responsibility for external relations at the time, while Deputy de Sausmarez is the island's Environment & Infrastructure President.
Between October 2020 and March 2024, the committee's total travel and accommodation costs totaled £70,981.42.
They were granted an extension to reply to the Rule 14 enquiry which was made on Tuesday 11 June.
In the questions, which have also been answered by others committees, Deputy Le Tissier asks for assurances "in the interest of transparency and accountability an annual detailed report covering the above will be published in the public domain, highlighting each States members travel details, costs and the reason for the trip."
"The Policy & Resources Committee agrees that the transparency of taxpayer's money is desirable, but the level of detail needs to be proportionate to the aim. The expenditure on external travel, relating to external relations activities, is included in total within the External Relations reporting in the annual accounts.
"The collation of this data set from voluminous data records and paper record is time consuming and has taken officials a significant volume of time across the organisation, including for one official in external relations over 35 hours to produce this information in this format for the Policy & Resources Committee. "
The estimated officers' time across the committee to generate the information response is just under 80 hours, it said.
"In order to meet the Rule 14 timelines, which the Bailiff agreed to extend to 30 clear days, has necessitated the use of staff time out of hours without pay/time in lieu in order to ensure that other pressing priorities continue to be met, including the preparation for HM The King's visit and the UK engagement after the UK's General Election.
Pictured: P&R has said collating data on the committee's travel and expenses has taken up a considerable amount of staff time.
"The Committee is of the view that publishing this level of detail on a regular basis is not a good use of staff resources or taxpayers' money given the relatively small expenditure in respect of the overall Policy & Resources budget and specifically the External Relations Budget."
Travel costs have come to an average of £26,000 per annum over the period, it stressed.
"The Committee would suggest limiting the report to long haul flights or any instances where travel expenditure has clearly exceeded £1,500 per person, where demonstrating value for money would have the greatest benefit in terms of transparency compared to the administrative burden of collating the data."
Countries agreed on the need to "transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems".
The text calls for this to be done "in a just, orderly and equitable manner", something seen as an important recognition that richer countries should move away from coal, oil and gas more quickly.
No timescale was specified.
The agreement also included global targets to triple the capacity of renewable energy like wind and solar power, and to double the rate of energy efficiency improvements, both by 2030.
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