Part of 1. 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:49 pm on 14 February 2017.
The First Minister has sidestepped my question. My question is not to do with the argument about whether man-made climate change is a reality or not. My question relates to: what difference does it make if we sign up to targets that are going to pose enormous costs upon us, not just in terms of cost for industry but also on ordinary people? After all, nearly a quarter of the households in Wales are in fuel poverty, spending more than 10 per cent of their incomes on keeping themselves warm in the winter, for example. So, this is a real burden on poor and vulnerable people. If it makes no difference to the outcome in terms of global emissions, why should we saddle ourselves with these enormous bills? China and India are not signed up to reducing the absolute level of their emissions. What they’re signed up to is reducing energy intensity, but that has to take into account the extent to which they expect their economies will grow, and their economies are going to grow to a greater extent than they reduce their fuel intensity. So, absolute emissions are actually likely to increase in India and China, and that makes the problem even worse, and we’re the fools who are paying the bills.