Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:21 pm on 3 May 2017.
I think, like many Members in the Assembly today, I’ve found UKIP’s position here a rather strange one. It is a sort of mix of damning with faint praise or distorting the picture rather dramatically. They can’t quite agree as to whether the Welsh contribution to emissions is 0.04 per cent or 0.005 per cent. But, of course, the real issue is that, in terms of what our emissions are, they are higher than the UK average because of our steel industry. They are higher than the European average, and we have to do our bit here as part of a co-ordinated international response, which of course we signed up to. We do our bit, expecting our partners around the world to do their bit. But, obviously, this is not the approach that UKIP takes. And I have to say that the amount of carbon that’s gone into the atmosphere since the second world war and the age of oil and, it has to be said, through globalisation spreading economic prosperity, is far vaster than in the period between 1910 and 1940. So, you know, I think we do need to root ourselves in some fairly solid facts.
But, you know, there's a whole issue here—which is important—about the visual effect on our environment of any new development. But I have to say, you know, the age of heavy industry in terms of the disfigurement that created is out-of-mind greater than what we now have with renewable sources of energy. That doesn't mean to say we should be casual about where they are deployed and that we should not take into account their impact on the environment.