Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:23 pm on 4 October 2017.
Yes, but it’s an average, isn’t it? And so you’ve only got to see how much ice is breaking off in both Antarctica and in the Arctic, and that’s going to lead to flooding in a large number of low-lying areas, and possibly countries disappearing.
The other thing I was going to say is, if you want to help the poor: better insulation. Many of us have visited people in their houses, which are certainly not warm. They probably spend more on keeping their house warm than I do, but because they’ve got poor central heating, they’ve got windows that are single-glazed, they’ve got gaps between the frame and the wall, they’ve got cold air coming in—. That would make a bigger effect than any extra charges.
Can I thank the Minister for her comments? And increasing carbon consciousness—we do need to know what we’re doing. The Welsh Government’s support for stopping global temperature rises is well known, and something I and, I’m sure, most people, if not everybody, in this room, really appreciates, because it’s a bit like the straw and the camel’s back, isn’t it? Yes, we’re only a small country, but if every small country did exactly the same thing and kept on pushing temperatures up, then it would all go up.
I really support the ambitions of the Cabinet Secretary that we’ve got to be ambitious because, as somebody once said, it’s only one world we’ve got. The fact that some of us in the west use up the world’s resources as if there are three worlds doesn’t mean that we have three worlds to exploit. So, we need to start reducing what we do, and preventative measures to reduce carbon dioxide emissions—we cannot ask for more than that. But, really, I come back to what Simon Thomas started with: personal responsibility. If people know how much carbon they’re using, most people will try and reduce it, and that’s really what this is asking for. Thank you.