4. What is the Welsh Government doing to combat climate change? OAQ53737

I thank the Member for that. In March, the Welsh Government launched our first Government-wide statutory decarbonisation plan. It sets out 100 policies and proposals, across all sectors of our economy, to meet our current carbon budget and to set a longer term decarbonisation trajectory for Wales.

Many would agree with what young people are telling us, that climate change is the biggest threat that we face on our planet. Wales has a small but very important part to play in this. The fact that we're missing our carbon reduction targets shows that Wales is not on the right track when we could and should be driving the agenda and setting an example for the world to follow. 

Speaking at the launch of your Government's decarbonisation plan last month, former environment Minister, Jane Davidson, said environmental non-governmental organisations were becoming excluded from the decision-making process in Wales. When the Climate Change Commission for Wales was in operation, NGOs and young people had a seat at the table. Now the climate change commission has been scrapped and replaced by the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales, there's a real danger that the expertise of civil society and the voices of young people will be locked out of the room. Do you share my concerns and the view of Jane Davidson that a problem like climate change warrants all hands on deck, and if so, how will your Government ensure that civil society's voices will be heard?

Well, I thank the Member for that because I absolutely agree with the point that she makes that the emergency of climate change is something that can only be addressed by absolutely every individual and every organisation committing to playing their part in combating it. I was present at the event that she mentioned. I didn't hear Jane Davidson say that, but I wasn't there for the whole day either. The well-being of future generations Act commissioner was also addressing that conference. Really importantly, to take the first point that Leanne Wood has made, young people had a really important part to play in that conference, in preparing for it, in planning for it and in speaking directly to it. It was a great privilege for me, having made my contribution, then to spend more time at the conference specifically meeting the groups of young people who had been involved in preparing for the conference itself. I met a whole range of young people who had fantastic stories to tell, things that they themselves were doing in the schools and colleges that they belonged to, with ideas that they wanted to put to others, with challenges to those of us who have, as they would undoubtedly see it, helped to create the legacy of issues that they will have to work through in their lives, and the contribution that they have to make to shaping this agenda is very important indeed.

I'm quite certain that the well-being of future generations Act commissioner makes really strenuous efforts to make sure that she engages with young people, that their voices are absolutely not excluded in the way that she shapes the advice that she gives to us. I know how busy she is in engaging with civic society of all sorts across Wales. I'd be very disappointed if this important agenda was in any way excluding important voices in Wales. I'm very happy to have a conversation with the commissioner to make sure that she is aware of the points that the Member has raised this afternoon.  

First Minister, your plan had 100 action points in it and obviously it brought all the action points together for the first time, I believe, in one document. One of the targets is to increase tree planting and the environment committee here has looked at that. You have missed that by a country mile and when you look at Natural Resources Wales, they have over 6,000 hectares and more of unplanted forestry ground. Can you give a commitment today, because I appreciate some of the other things in the plan are far more long term, but you have all the levers to undertake this—can you give a commitment today that your tree-planting programme will be back on schedule by the end of this year and that we will be hitting the targets that your own Government has set itself, and in particular NRW will get their replanting rates back up to scratch?

I'm very keen indeed that that should happen. I recognise what the Member has said about targets not being reached recently, and I'm very determined that we will reach them in the future. A new round of rural development programme funding for Glastir woodland creation was launched yesterday, with expressions of interest to be submitted by 10 May. I know the Minister is watching that development very closely in order to make sure that we do reach those targets. I made a commitment during the leadership election in my own party to the creation of a new national forest here in Wales, and I think that that is an idea that will help us to make sure not only that we reach the targets that we have now for tree planting but that we are able to do even more to capture the contribution that greater tree planting in Wales can make, both to the carbon and climate change agenda but to other agendas as well.