I don’t want to fight climate change battles with climate change sceptics and climate change deniers again. I would simply say, for those who are interested in looking at where the science is on this—a very good lecture was given by Lord Stern at the Royal Society on 28 October this month on the criticality of the next 10 years, and, by the way, the challenges and the opportunities that come from that as well if we respond to it in the right way. So, I’m not going to go fighting over past battles that have frankly been put to bed.

We are in an unprecedented period of climate change, and unless we take action, and in a speedy way—. Lord Stern originally said, way back in the Stern report, that we have to take immediate action, we have to invest in the right measures, and invest in it heavily to drive forward change in mitigation and adaptation. He is now saying that we are behind the curve again. We’ve got to really speed it up. And, in fact, Lord Deben’s report that was produced last year, from the climate change commission, which was presented in the House of Commons, said exactly the same—there is now an even greater urgency to move on. And we can do it, and we all have a role, as individuals, as families, as communities, and as Government at all levels. And it was great to see last Saturday—I couldn’t go and join them because I had other meetings—that Surfers against Sewage—who wouldn’t be against sewage, frankly—together with Stop Climate Chaos were down on the beaches at Porthcawl clearing the beaches, but also—. There were 50-odd people there apparently—the youngest one was literally a baby in arms, and, of course, some people who were in more advanced years—cleaning the beach, but also talking together about what they could do locally in terms of initiatives to make the planet better and to develop community energy schemes and so on.

I was there back in 2009 when the Cumbria floods happened—when they hit. I was actually standing in the Met Office. Hilary Benn, Secretary of State at the time, had brought together, in a great innovation, the Met Office and the Environment Agency in a flood forecasting centre in London. I was there looking at the panels as we were able to say, with around about 36 hours’ advanced notice, the scale of what was going to hit us, and it did hit. As we know, the cost to Cumbria was not far short of £300 million damage, economically, to the local area. Bridges were swept away and rivers changed their courses overnight. Bill Barker, a local policeman, lost his life on a bridge that was swept away in the floods. And there was more besides: the devastation to hundreds, if not thousands of people, who weren’t out of their houses temporarily, but for months, and in some cases, actually, for years to come as well. Since then, we’ve seen more and more and more.

There can be nothing controversial now about saying that the frequency and the intensity of traumatic weather incidents here and abroad is recognised by everybody as being more severe, more frequent, more devastating for lives. And whilst it hits us in this country—. And I was there, by the way, as well when we produced the maps that were showing the scare stories in the newspapers of the land that showed the potential, over the next 50 to 100 years, of coastal inundation, and we saw what the effects of that would be in places like East Anglia and the Fenland. But we also produced the action plans and the toolkit that would say what we could do to actually avoid this happening in its entirety—to work with nature where we had to and to defend where we had to as well. There are ways out of these situations if we choose to actually do it. But it is pressing and it is urgent.

It was great that the Welsh Government was represented there last year at COP21 in Paris, and they were not only part of the negotiations that were going on but also the ratification of what would be done by policy makers, then, in the regions and in the nations here on the ground. I was there as part of the global alliance of legislatures, looking at the practical implementation of what flowed from COP21. And COP21 was significant—we had, for the first time, the big, global players that we needed to be there. There was agreement that that wasn’t the end of it—that was only the start of it. We then needed to ratchet it up.

That, I think, is where we need to look here at Wales. How do we ratchet it up? How ambitious are we going to be? In my final comments, let me say: we can do this—we can do this. How intent are we at keeping fossil fuels in the ground? How intent are we at driving community energy and clean, green energy, and at building green jobs around that, using energy efficiency as national infrastructure to boost economic growth, and using renewables, including the tidal lagoon? It’s absolutely scandalous that we’re not using the second-highest tidal drop in the world right on our doorstep here. What more can we do with liquefied petroleum gas and with getting rid of petrol and diesel and moving to LPG and electric transport? A development of a south Wales and north Wales integrated, low-cost public transport—decarbonised system or low-carbon system; incentivising carbon reduction in the higher-intensive industries, including down the road here in the steel industry; not just zero-carbon homes, but energy-positive homes, like the SOLCER house; and recognising and explicitly rewarding public and environmental goods, including climate change adaptation and flood alleviation in our rural and agricultural policies—all that and so much more. We have led the way in Wales before. We can do it again, and we can do even more. And I think there’s a will in this Chamber today to urge the Minister to be bold and all her colleagues as well.