Can I start by saying that I fully support the Welsh Government’s support for decarbonisation? I believe that unless we take appropriate action, catastrophe awaits us, not just in Wales, but across the world. We cannot afford the earth to keep on getting hotter.

The three main carbon-based fuels are coal, oil and gas. Coal is composed primarily of carbon along with quantities of other elements—it’s a fossil fuel created from dead plant material. Crude oil is a mixture of hydrocarbons formed from dead sea creatures. Natural gas is a naturally occurring hydrocarbon mixture consisting primarily of methane, but commonly including varying amounts of other alkanes. It is formed of layers of decomposing plant and animal matter. What do all three of these have in common? They are carbon based.

Burning carbon, assuming sufficient oxygen, will create carbon dioxide. With insufficient oxygen it produces carbon monoxide. How do we know it’s not creating large amounts of carbon monoxide? Because we know carbon monoxide is a serious poison. If we were creating large amounts of carbon monoxide then people would not be alive. So, we know it’s creating carbon dioxide and we know it’s creating carbon dioxide in large quantities. We could even, using calculations on the weight of material we’re burning, work out how much carbon dioxide we are creating.

Greenhouse gas is a gas in an atmosphere that absorbs and emits radiation within the thermal infrared range. This process is the fundamental cause of the greenhouse effect. The primary greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere are water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and ozone. Without greenhouse gases, the average temperature of the Earth’s surface would be about −18 centigrade. So, we do need some of them, otherwise we would be far too cold.

So, we’ve got two ways we’re going to die out now, we can either die out from carbon monoxide poisoning or being too cold. So, we need to get it absolutely right. So, some greenhouse gases are inevitable and beneficial, but the more we have, the hotter it gets. That is why it’s important that we reduce our carbon usage.

How can we be sure that greenhouse gases have that effect? Well, you would think the closer a planet is to the sun the hotter it would be, but we know that Venus is further away from the sun—substantially further away from the sun—than Mercury, but we also know that Venus is hotter. We know why Venus is hotter—because 96 per cent of its atmosphere is carbon dioxide.

I’m happy to take an intervention at this stage from anybody who wants to say that they want to deny the fact that we are creating greenhouse gases via carbon dioxide and it is making the Earth warmer. I don’t understand where these people who are deniers of the effect of man-made global warming come from, because it goes against all you get from basic science. Nothing I’ve read out here would come as a shock to a 16-year-old doing GCSEs.

The decarbonisation of the power sector means reducing its carbon usage. That is, the emissions per unit of electricity generated in grams of carbon dioxide per kilowatt hour. This is necessary to achieve the mandatory greenhouse gas emission targets set in the UK Climate Change Act, which requires emissions to be cut by 80 per cent by 2050 compared to 1990 levels. We’ve got to do it, and we’ve all got to do it.

A gradual decarbonisation of the power sector can be achieved by increasing the share of low carbon energy sources like renewables, like: wind, especially offshore wind, which is much more reliable than onshore wind; solar energy, which was very popular and then the Conservative Government, with the help of the Liberal Democrats, decided to cut the subsidy on it; and tidal energy, and I speak as somebody who could speak for the next two and a half minutes on tidal energy, even if you wouldn’t let me, Deputy Presiding Officer. But it’s reliable. It’s the one thing we know—the tide is going to come in and out, as long as the moon stays in place. If the moon’s gone, we’ve got a bigger problem than the fact that the tidal energy is gone.

So, we need to use these alternative energies. We need to use electric cars. We need to start thinking—in those immortal words: there’s only one planet we’ve got; if we destroy it, we can’t go and use another one. That really is the key.

Another argument that has been made is that Wales is too small and it doesn’t matter what we do. What we do as individuals all matters. We know that everyone needs to decarbonise—big countries and small countries, the tiniest islands and the largest countries. Even Donald Trump’s America needs to decarbonise. We need to play our part in ensuring a sustainable world. At what stage do we say, ‘Oh, well, we’ll just go back and start again’? Because we can’t. If the Earth gets too hot, it’ll be impossible for people to live in large parts of it. People will be dying, we won’t be having the food that we’re used to, and water levels will rise. It’s a no-brainer these days: we need to ensure that we decarbonise, and I welcome the decision of the Welsh Government to start doing this.