Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I thank Members for their contributions in this very timely debate, which I welcome. Colleagues will be aware that I made an announcement just before summer recess on public sector decarbonisation and, last week, I made a statement on our renewable energy targets. Next month, I will be at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, COP23, in Bonn to share Welsh successes and, of course, learn from others. I think Welsh Government presence at these events really demonstrates our commitment to mitigate global warming and our support for the Paris agreement. I should just perhaps remind Neil Hamilton that 195 UNFCCC members signed that, so I don’t think it’s just something that afflicts the west. Of course, Wales is not a party to the agreement, but we know that action taken at state and regional level is critical in keeping global temperature rise this century well below 2 degrees. I think it’s also an excellent opportunity to talk about the groundbreaking legislative framework and foundations we have laid here in Wales, and I’m very much looking forward to again talking about and sharing our experiences in Bonn.

Simon Thomas pointed out that we really need to share the burden in relation to climate change, and that’s why you brought forward this debate on personal carbon accounts, but I did just want to outline some of the work that we are doing as a Welsh Government. So, I mentioned that, just before summer recess, I declared my ambition to achieve a carbon-neutral public sector by 2030 and launched a call for evidence asking stakeholders to share their views on the opportunities and challenges, potential interim targets and monitoring progress, and we’ll shortly be announcing the next steps in this area.

Just last week, I announced challenging new targets for renewable energy production to focus action across the country and capture more benefits for Wales. We’ve also been working with the UK Committee on Climate Change to define the detail beneath the headline target. And I’ve accepted the committee’s advice on how we will account for Welsh emissions and look forward to receiving the next part of their advice shortly. This will inform our decisions on interim targets and carbon budgets. The committee has also involved stakeholders to make sure their advice represents a wide range of views.

Of course, decarbonisation aligns very closely to the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 and we need to consider the long term and take an integrated approach across Government and across society. We need to collaborate with others, as we can’t do this alone and we need to enable and support people to act.

So, cutting emissions now to avoid even more significant climate breakdown is perhaps the ultimate preventative measure, and there is nothing more important to the generations to come than having an environment to sustain them. So, I’m working with my colleagues in the ministerial task and finish group to ensure that our policies and proposals from across Government will reduce our emissions and benefit our economy and health. Our work has focused on emissions by sector, because this is how emissions are reported across the world. I think this is a very helpful way of considering the problem and identifying policies.

Turning now to personal carbon accounts, I’m obviously very well aware of the link between sector emissions and the choices that we make as individuals. Transport sector emissions are largely a product of millions of people choosing to fly, drive, cycle or walk, and, as Simon said, our choices in the way that we live obviously affect our personal carbon use. So, I think we really need to increase our carbon consciousness, our awareness of the impact of our choices, and think about our carbon use, if we are to see the change that we need. Personal carbon accounts are, of course, one way of doing this.

So, as we will be setting national carbon budgets, I think it seems quite logical to go one step further and apply those numbers at a personal level. Simon mentioned—and I was very aware of the UK Labour Government’s work that was done in this area when they looked at personal carbon accounts, and did, indeed, conclude that it was an idea ahead of its time, and I know that—