Thank you. A quick change, Deputy Presiding Officer, and I would just suggest to Members, if you’ve had enough of me already then consider having more Members in the Assembly so that we can share around the work a little bit. [Laughter.] But I’m delighted to introduce a backbench Members debate on the concept of our own personal carbon accounts. The context of this, of course, is that the environment Act here in Wales sets a target to reduce carbon emissions by 80 per cent by 2050, and here in the Assembly we talk a lot about what the Cabinet Secretary’s doing, what the Welsh Government’s doing, we talk a lot, perhaps, about what some private businesses are doing, we talk about new ideas, like the tidal lagoon or whatever it might be, but we don’t talk so much about what our own personal contribution to that can be. So, I was very struck, when I met Martin Burgess, who’s one of my constituents in Aberystwyth but, in this context, is a researcher at Aberystwyth University and has been working on the concept of personal carbon accounts for about a decade now, and has helped develop within the university, but also more widely, how this concept may be taken forward.

I think at the outset I want to say that although there’s a real concept here that could be worked on the ground, there’s also a more interesting—or as interesting—discussion around whether we take any personal responsibility for our carbon use, which I hope this debate will also enable us to discuss and trigger.

The concept almost came to fruition: David Miliband, as environment Secretary, commissioned independent reports on personal carbon accounts. That was reported in the end to Hilary Benn—he became environment Secretary in 2008. It was, it has to be said, shelved, but I think it’s an idea whose time has certainly come for discussion in the Assembly.

So, how would this work as a concept? Well, quite simply, each of us does have our own personal carbon use in the way we live our daily lives, the way we shop, the way we drive, the way we travel to work, the way we purchase our goods, and the way we have an impact on the environment. A personal carbon account is a form of personal carbon trading, which means that it’s transferred to you as a kind of bank account or a credit card or debit card—but it’s more of a credit card, really, because you get the accounts up front.

Each month, or each year, the Government allows—makes allowance—for everyone’s personal carbon use: a free carbon allowance, if you like, each month. Each time you use carbon, whether that’s in terms of particularly carbon-intensive goods you might buy, or your use of fuel, your use of heating, or whatever use it might be, you are debited that from your account. So, the idea is, of course, to make people think about their carbon use. In this regard, I think it goes hand in hand with some other wider changes that we’re already seeing: smart metering is designed to make you think about your individual carbon use. We have apps now that we can use that tell us and allow us to turn down the heating at home when we’re away from home, to turn off the lights, and that tell us how much energy we’re using. This integrates and brings it home much more at a personal level.

Very importantly, you can always buy more carbon—but you do buy it—but you can also sell any carbon that you haven’t used. In other words, it’s a personal trading account. There’s one important thing that must be stated right now, which is that this is not a tax. The Government doesn’t get any money out of this; this is a personal relationship between you and your carbon use. You could do it as carbon trading, as I said, so you could buy more or sell, but the Government doesn’t take a take from this. This is about ensuring that everyone’s carbon use is accounted for and bringing home to individuals how they might reduce their use of carbon.

So, there is a concept here that personal carbon accounts could play an important role in ensuring that we meet our national and international targets to cut carbon emissions, and that’s why I hope the debate will also be seen in the context of the wider agreement of the Welsh Government and, indeed, the vote of this Assembly to support the Paris climate change agreements.

There’s a real personal effect of this as well. We’ve seen recent reports in the media of very poor air quality in London, but don’t think that air quality in London is poor and ours in Wales is wonderful. There are five areas in Wales where we have excess nitrogen dioxide, and the excess there is a real health risk; it’s been called by Public Health Wales one of the biggest health risks—I think the third biggest health risk—facing us. So, there’s a real need to address our use of carbon, the impact on the environment, and the polluting impact of that.

You may think that people would be very reluctant to undertake or believe in this, but we didn’t think that 5p on a plastic bag would change people’s behaviour—it certainly did. Studies by Cardiff and Nottingham universities have found that 88 per cent of people do believe that the climate is changing and do want to see more action by Governments with regard to climate change. Cynnal Cymru had this national conversation, ‘The Wales We Want’—many Members will remember that—and found that 26 per cent of people involved in that conversation felt that climate change was the single most important issue facing future generations. So, there’s another aspect of this concept that fits not only with the environment Act, but with, of course, the well-being of future generations Act, which I think sometimes is an Act casting around for an actual practical application. I think this might be a practical application for that Act.

Personal carbon accounts should only be a complement to what the Government does, but I think it’s important that we share the burden—that we don’t just blame Government when they get it wrong, but we share with Government how we might achieve that. I think it’s conceptually very exciting that each of us might have that carbon account. I think it’s also quite interesting to look at work by the department of human geography at Aberystwyth University that showed that 58 per cent of households currently emit less carbon than the mean. In other words, a carbon account would benefit 58 per cent of the households, and would have a disbenefit, if you like, for the 40 per cent left. It would be progressive because, on the whole, those who use more carbon are the richer and better off in society. There are, of course, particularly in rural areas, some examples of that not working where you’re reliant on solid fuel, where you can’t afford to get your house properly insulated, where you cannot choose your fuel supplier; those are issues that might be detrimental to personal carbon accounts. So, they have to go hand in hand with wider investment issues around fuel poverty, around insulation and around ensuring equity of access to new ideas such as solar panels or electric charging, or whatever it may be.

But in the wider context, it undoubtedly as a concept fits in to our approach on cutting carbon. It undoubtedly fits in to the targets the Welsh Government had set itself for carbon reduction in Wales, and it’s something that can be delivered, at least on a pilot, here in Wales, and that’s something that I think is particularly exciting. So, I hope that this debate will allow people to at least debate the concept of personal carbon accounts, debate the idea of how we can make changes ourselves, and I hope to hear from the Welsh Government—I’m sure I will hear some of the problems that such a project would have— whether, at least in the concept, it is something that we can discuss and take forward, and perhaps hold in mind as a particularly Welsh solution to an international challenge.