I welcome the Welsh Government’s 'Energy Generation in Wales 2017' report. The report highlights the mountain we have to climb if we are to reduce Wales’s emissions by at least 80 per cent over the next 30 years. It is essential for our future survival that we meet these targets. As set out in the Paris agreement, reducing emissions was vital if we were to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees compared with pre-industrial levels, with an upper limit of 2 degrees. However, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported last month that we would meet the 1.5 degree threshold in the next 10 years.

Unless we take drastic, immediate action, the world is heading for a 3 to 4 degree rise in global temperatures. Not a single member of the G20 is taking sufficient action to tackle global warming. And this is not helped by those who still believe climate change is a myth. At the weekend, the leader of the world’s largest economy, America, still clung to his woefully mistaken belief that the concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive. This in spite of massive loss of life to climate-related events in the past 12 months. Unless we take drastic, immediate action, deadly forest fires, catastrophic hurricanes and devastating floods will be the least of our problems. Even with a 2 degree rise in global temperatures, we will see entire countries disappear below the rising ocean, a 50 per cent increase in wildfires across Europe and millions of people displaced. We have to act now and we have to act fast.

As the 'Energy Generation in Wales' report highlights, 78 per cent of Welsh energy production comes from fossil fuels. If our planet is to survive relatively unscathed, then we need to reduce that to zero over the coming decades.

We need a true mix of renewables—solar panels and tidal power, but the answer doesn't lie in large-scale wind or solar farms. We need to move to a decentralised energy grid where every home, every village, every town and city produces its own energy.

Technology will be the key to averting a global catastrophe. Already we are seeing our homes become more energy efficient, light-emitting diode lighting uses 100 times less energy. Our appliances are now achieving power efficiency rates of 95 per cent. New homes are so well insulated they rarely need heating.

However, transport remains our biggest challenge. We need to move to all electric and hydrogen-fuelled vehicles a lot sooner that the UK Government’s target of 2050. Because of Wales’s geography, public transport will never replace all demand for personal transport. We therefore have to ensure that we replace the car, the lorry and the van with clean alternatives. But that is going to require significant investment in infrastructure, investment that we must make and must make now if we are to stand any chance of surviving our changing climate. Diolch yn fawr.