Part of 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Energy, Planning and Rural Affairs – in the Senedd at 1:45 pm on 7 November 2018.
I think others will judge your actions rather than your words. But let's look at the decision that you've made and the reason that you've given for it. Yes, I understand that the Government has a commitment to renewable energy, but even if one accepts the Government's view of global warming and its causes, I cannot understand how the desecration of an important beauty spot in mid Wales can be outweighed by renewable energy considerations, because whatever the United Kingdom does in relation to global warming is immediately extinguished by what's happening in the rest of the world.
In China, for example, they are currently in the process of building another 210 GW of coal-fired power station. Now, at the moment, we are consuming in the United Kingdom 37 GW, so the Chinese are going to add, in the next few years, seven times the entire consumption of electricity in the United Kingdom on a dark and dull day, like today. So, whatever reduction in carbon emissions and whatever contribution that might make to solving the problems of global warming, it's going to make absolutely no difference whatsoever, but it's going to make a vast difference to the people of mid Wales.