The following amendments have been selected: amendment 1 in the name of Darren Millar, and amendment 2 in the name of Rebecca Evans.

The next item is the Plaid Cymru debate on climate change. I call on Llyr Gruffydd to move the motion.

Motion NDM7036 Rhun ap Iorwerth

To propose that the National Assembly for Wales:

1. Notes the stark warning from the world’s scientific community that there are just 12 years left to prevent 1.5 degrees warming.

2. Further notes that warming beyond 1.5 degrees represents a threat to the future of humanity, and that even warming limited to that level will wreak havoc upon the livelihoods of countless people across the world.

3. Acknowledges that that an urgent and rapid global response is now necessary.

4. Welcomes the fact that solutions to the climate crisis are widely available including renewable technology, sustainable transport options and zero-carbon buildings.

5. Supports the decisions of community, town and county councils across Wales to pass motions declaring a climate emergency and setting net zero carbon emissions targets for their local areas.

6. Calls on the Welsh Government to declare a climate emergency.

Motion moved.

Thank you very much, Llywydd. I’m sure that many of us will have welcomed the statement that the Government made earlier this week declaring a climate emergency, and that, of course, in response to the tireless campaigning of climate campaigners—young people, the school strikers and thousands of others, and ourselves as a party, who have consistently raised this issue over the past few months.

I also agree, if I may say so—if the Government does feel that such a statement is to have national significance, I agree with some of the backbench Members of the Government party that the statement should have been made to this Chamber rather than being released in a weak press release from the Welsh Government. But, it does demonstrate that gains can be made and the tireless campaigning does work.

So, despite the declaration having been made, there is, of course, still purpose to today's debate. I understand, by the way, Llywydd, that members of the public are being denied access to the gallery to view this debate, so I am concerned at that, but maybe we can be told why that's the case at some point. Of course, we now have to make sure that we cannot end up seeing this as being some sort of headline-grabbing grandstanding from the Government. It really needs to mean real and immediate change and action to tackle climate change.

Many of us were a bit disturbed by the First Minister's statement yesterday, when he said that declaring a climate emergency doesn't really represent a sharp difference in policy for the Government. Surely, the whole point of declaring a climate emergency is that everything changes. I very nearly expect something more like a civil contingency response than a business-as-usual response from this Government. We only have to look at the environment Minister's statement issued yesterday and, again, I agree with her own backbencher, who described it as a wholly inadequate response. In essence, I think, it's establishing two new committees and giving the university of Cardiff a bit more money. Well, my question to the First Minister and to the Government today is whether you're really up for this challenge. Declaring a climate emergency can't just be a rebranding of existing policies. We've seen recently published, of course, the Government's 'low carbon Wales' paper, and the BBC highlighted quite clearly that the vast majority of pledges in that document already exist in different Government departments. This has to be a game changer, and business as usual is not an option.

The 'low carbon Wales' document that I mentioned—if you look at it closely, of course, a lot of the commitments start with, 'We will consult on', 'We will consider', 'We will start to explore' this, that and the other. Of course, the Government's narrative around climate change really has to fundamentally change, and the Government needs to move to action mode. So, prove to us today, Minister, that this Government, as I say, is up for the challenge. As a party, we've made it clear the kinds of initiatives that we would want to pursue in Government, from establishing a national energy company to help achieve our goal of Wales becoming self-sufficient in renewable energy, to the energy atlas, of course, the national inventory of green energy potentials so that we can start unlocking some of that potential in a way that brings benefits to our communities and our people, of course. The biggest home retrofitting programme that Wales has ever seen was outlined, our multibillion pound energy-efficiency programme, contributing to the triple bottom line of reducing emissions, creating jobs, tackling fuel poverty across Wales. I'm already running out of time, because I've been limited to four minutes, so I'll just say—[Interruption.] Yes, that's fine. Okay—

I will need to make the point that Plaid Cymru chose to put this motion as a half-hour motion, and you are limited by the half hour.

Okay. And I've already wasted 30 seconds in making that point, and point taken.

The other point I'd like to make is that, if this motion was passed today, then it would mark us becoming the first Parliament in the world to declare a climate emergency, and that would give, I hope, the Government a mandate and the confidence to go further and faster than is currently the case. We owe it to our future generations. We know that they've made their views known recently, and, of course, we know as well that, by the time that next generation has their hands on powers, then it'll be too late, so it falls on us as today's leaders to step forward and deliver.

Declaring a climate emergency isn't the culmination of anything; it's the beginning. And my plea to you, Minister, First Minister and the Welsh Government, is: let's move into action mode and let's do something.

I have selected both amendments to the motion, and I call on Andrew R.T. Davies to move amendment 1 tabled in the name of Darren Millar. Andrew R.T. Davies.

Amendment 1—Darren Millar

Delete points 5 and 6 and replace with:

Welcomes the leading role the UK has played working towards a global deal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through the Paris Agreement and notes that since 1990, the UK has cut emissions by more than 40 per cent while growing the economy by more than two thirds, the best performance on a per person basis than any other G7 nation.

Regrets that emissions in Wales only fell by 19 per cent during the period between 1990 to 2015 and calls on the Welsh Government to work with local authorities and the UK Government to ensure that new legally-binding carbon emissions targets are met moving forward in Wales.

Amendment 1 moved.

Thank you, Presiding Officer. I welcome the opportunity to speak in this debate. I agree with the sentiments that have been expressed today. It is a shame that only 30 minutes of parliamentary time is being used to deal with this very, very important issue. People will have different ways of attracting and attacking this particular problem that we face and this issue that we face, which, as the First Minister said, is the issue of this generation that we need to face and tackle head-on. But it has been an issue for the last 20 to 30 years, and there has been huge progress in the way that we have gone about our everyday lives, whether we are in business, whether we look at it domestically or whether we look at it as society as a whole.

I formally move the amendment in the name of Darren Millar, which highlights some of the successes at a UK level that we've been enjoying to date, with a 40 per cent reduction, whilst the economy has been growing by more than two thirds, and also signing up to the Paris agreement as well, which also then goes on to highlight that, sadly, in Wales here we've only seen a 19 per cent reduction in the same period from 1990 to 2015. I don't for one minute doubt the Minister's seriousness or intention and purpose in attacking some of these challenges that she in the Government's position faces, but it is a fact that, sadly, our footprint here in Wales is not achieving the same success as other parts of the United Kingdom or other examples we can look at around the globe.

Driving in this morning knowing that this debate was taking place, I did reflect back to my youth when, in Grangetown, you used to drive past, virtually next door to the IKEA store at the moment, the huge landfill tip that used to be there, and that used to be basically seven days a week landfill going in there—black rubbish and bulldozers flattening that site down time and time again. When you look at our recycling rates and the way we domestically and industrially have completely changed and transformed the way our economy works, that surely has to be a positive.

Just to declare a climate change emergency—it does need to have a roadmap and a route map of where we're going to respond to this, because the word 'emergency' indicates the seriousness of what we need to be doing. As Members here, we literally had a written statement yesterday rather than an oral statement where we could challenge and we could probe what the Minister will be doing in the next weeks, the next months, and the coming years to make the changes that people by and large across society in Wales want to see happen. And certainly from these benches, she will find willing supporters along that journey. But it is also important that the Government uses the levers that are available to make sure that the changes from the Government policy position are enacted on the ground, and I, as a supporter of the M4 relief road, do find myself in contradiction to some of the points that the environmentalists want to make on this point, but I state that fact.

Now, yesterday, we had the climate change emergency announced on Monday, and we then had a Government statement talking about what it wanted to do in the field of aviation, and we know that £30 million to £40 million has been spent so far promoting the M4 relief road. I appreciate there's a difference of opinion here, but, equally, if you're in that chair as the Government, you need to make sure that you're using the tools available to back up the rhetoric that you're doing rather than just chasing the headlines on a press release on a Monday afternoon.

And when it comes to planning, for example, which is another important area and important lever that can be used, if we look around the city of Cardiff with the huge new housing estates that are being built, how much environmental work has gone in to protect and develop those estates so that they do have a positive footprint when they're built out by the 2030s and 2035s? There's so much more we can do in the field of planning. We have those powers available to us to make that difference.

In particular, I would implore the Minister to actually get to grips with some of the recommendations that have come from the environment and sustainability committee's report that looked at the way the Government was performing in this area—in the area of forestry, for example, where we know Government targets have been missed and missed by a country mile. Again, it's about the Government making sure that when it does set itself a challenge and does set itself a target, it hits that target. You might face criticism for not being ambitious enough, but at least we can have confidence that the targets are going to be met and we move on to the next level of what we need to do.

When you look at the evidence, time is ticking away against us. There has been progress over the last 20 to 30 years. Much, much more needs to be done, but let's make sure that we resolve and commit ourselves to handing over a better environment to the next generation, which is something that hasn't happened successively over previous generations. We can do it, the technology exists to do it. We just need the commitment and making sure that we deliver on our pledges.

I call on the Minister for Environment, Energy and Rural Affairs to move formally amendment 2, tabled in the name of Rebecca Evans. 

Amendment 2—Rebecca Evans

Add as new point at end of motion:

Commends the Welsh Government for:

a) bringing forward the Wellbeing of Future Generations Act and the Environment (Wales) Act to drive urgent action on climate change;

b) committing the public sector in Wales to achieving carbon neutrality by 2030 and for all public sector buildings to be supplied with 100 per cent renewable energy by 2020 or as soon as contractually able; and

c) exploring all options for decarbonising the Welsh economy by working with all sectors and communities, drawing on the best available scientific evidence.

Amendment 2 moved.

Formally.

I'm very glad to have the opportunity to speak in this debate, this year being the thirtieth anniversary of the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl, the legacy of which continues to remain with us, and we perhaps have in mind all the other potential Chernobyls that exist in nuclear power stations that are centred around conflict zones in various parts of the world. My concern is not so much in terms of understanding, knowing, and being aware of all the things that are happening to this planet, but how we actually achieve real change.

This year, I'll be 65. Next year, I qualify for my state pension. In 20 years, I probably won't be here. My generation is the generation that has destroyed this planet, is continuing to destroy this planet, and our legacy to the younger generation is to actually solve the mistakes that our generation has actually made. So, when we saw on the streets schoolchildren, young people, occupying the streets, occupying schools, demonstrating, protesting, I give my full support to that and I do not accept the criticisms of those people because what they are doing is expressing now the ownership of that legacy that we are leaving them: a legacy that has pushed the planet to virtually a tipping point.

I was very interested in the climate school strikers' four demands. 'The Government declares a climate emergency': well, we're moving towards that, and hopefully at Westminster that will happen shortly. 'That the national curriculum addresses the ecology crisis as a priority': it is beginning to do this, but as we talk about our curriculum now, I think that point is very, very pertinent in terms of an understanding of the link between the society we have and the environmental legacy. I'm very interested in a quote by Naomi Klein, which basically said that,

'Our economic system and our planetary system are now at war. Or, more accurately, our economy is at war with many forms of life on Earth, including human life.'

And what needs to change is not the laws of nature but it's the actual laws of the economy that require more and more expansion with very little regard to the environment.

Llywydd, the biggest criticism that many of the young people made that we've heard on social media and we've seen on the television is that politicians are good at words but we're not very good at action. Well, I think our young people have actually shown that they are prepared to take action, that they will take action, and I fully support them taking action in that sort of campaign because if we can't deliver, then the only people who can actually protect the future of our environment and our planet are going to be those young people taking action, fighting and defending for their future. Thank you.

It isn't often that we feel the weight of history on our shoulders, or rather the weight of the future. I welcome the Welsh Government's declaration of a climate emergency, but as the point has been made by Members across the Chamber, it must be backed up with action. The Oxford English Dictionary defines an emergency as 'a serious situation requiring immediate action'. It is defined by the fact that it necessitates doing something in response, so I'm sure the Welsh Government will appreciate the need to make the right call on projects like the M4 relief road. You cannot declare a climate emergency and continue to countenance the possibility of building that black route; it would be irrational. We are living in a hugely significant time. Yes, I'll take an intervention.

Does that also mean you don't want the bypass in Llandeilo?

To return to the point that I was making in terms of what this Government is doing: in order to actually declare a climate emergency, it has to be backed up with action. We are living in times of dark days. This is true close to home where over half of Welsh wildlife is in decline and one in 14 species are under threat of extinction. We see the impact of climate change in coastal erosion in the Gwent levels. The grief and the anger that we should feel about this is not only grounded in the loss of the natural world but also in our relationship to that natural world, the inspiration we draw from it and the contribution it makes to our health and well-being. We are creatures of our habitats and we are dependent on them. If we let them go, what will it mean for our survival?

Countries that have done little to contribute to the crisis are facing the eye of the storm. Mongolia's temperature has already risen by 2.2 degrees Celsius and they have the worst air pollution in the world. Mozambique has this year faced two cyclones; much of the land near the coast has turned into sea. Yes, the day is dark, but these are also the days when we have a last chance to do something about it. It is fitting in that sense that the origin of the word emergency is from the Latin emergere, meaning 'to arise or bring to light'. It reminds us that light must come out of the darkness if there is any hope. We must act and follow this adage: think globally, act locally.

New Zealand has determined no more gas and oil exploration permits will be granted. The Republic of Ireland will become the world's first country to sell all its investments in fossil fuel companies, likely within five years. And in the United States, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's green new deal aims to virtually eliminate greenhouse gas pollution in a decade.

Wales needs to think now about what actions it will take. Yes, within its competence, but we need to be ambitious. We should set highly far-reaching targets to limit our carbon output, encourage greater use of public transport and electric vehicles, and take steps to become powered solely by renewable energy. For our sake and the sake of the planet, declaring this emergency is a welcome, necessary step, but it must be the beginning of a sea change in our whole approach towards protecting our environment because the impact of climate change isn't remote, isolated or far away, it is now, it is immediate, it is near at hand. Solving it too and halting it is also within our grasp.

Well, I hope I can cheer everybody up with my little speech because the motion starts with one of the most spectacularly silly statements you could imagine: that the world's scientific community says that there are just 12 years left to prevent 1.5 degrees of warming. I'm old enough to remember the invention of the environment as a political issue at the end of the 1960s, and indeed the very first United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization conference on Earth Day in 1970. And it's very entertaining to look back at the predictions that were made at that conference, including one from ecologist Kenneth Watt, who warned about the impending ice age in a speech:

'The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years', he declared, and, 

'If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.'

Will you take an intervention?

Well, I've only got four minutes, so I don't think I can, thank you.

In the same conference, Paul Ehrlich, a renowned doomster on population, said that between 1980 and 1989, some 4 billion people, including 65 million Americans, would perish in the great die-off, and 50 years later, he's still at it. In The Guardian on 22 March this year, he's now saying, 

'A shattering collapse of civilisation is a "near certainty" in the next few decades due to humanity’s continuing destruction of the natural world'.

So, I'm afraid, regardless of the extent to which predictions depart from reality, these people just never give up, do they?

Life magazine in 1970 reported that,

'Scientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence to support…the following predictions: In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution…by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half'.

And I could go on and on and on. Well, here are the facts: since 1850, the global temperature has increased by 0.9 of a degree centigrade, and half of that increase took place before 1950 when it's generally accepted that the manmade global warming—even if you believe the science—that is said to be behind it could not have been the cause.

Of course, what these predictions fail to cope with is more recent temperature data, because since the great global cooling scare ended in 1975, there has been the following: until 1998, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and temperatures did rise roughly in conjunction with one another, but then, in 1998, there started a 20-year pause in increases in world temperature, whilst global carbon dioxide figures went up and up and up, and until 2015 or 2016, they were flat. Nobody has quite explained how it is that these predictions fail to cope with the reality of temperatures that are recorded by actual observation. In 2015-16, there was more warming, but in 2017-18, there was more cooling, and now, average global temperatures are actually 1 degree Fahrenheit below the computer model predictions. So, how do you explain the pause? How can you predict with confidence that, in 12 years, there will be an increase in world temperatures of 1.5 degrees, when the experience of the last 50 years proves the opposite?

There are, of course, loads of other alarmist forecasts, which I don't have time to debunk—

Will you take an intervention? 

I can't, I'm afraid. I've only got less than a minute left. But—

Let me just show you a map.

Afterwards, please. [Laughter.]

He's not taking an intervention.

I'd be very happy to go through it with you.

Of course, the biggest threat to the world if you believe the warmists' predictions, of course, is the rise of population, because the world population in 1800 was 1 billion, and in 2019, it's nearly 8 billion and it's forecast to be 8.5 billion by 2030. And most of this increase will take place in rapidly industrialising countries, and we all know what's happening in the far east. In India last year, there was a 6.7 per cent increase in their emissions; in China— 

Member of the Senedd:

Here we go.

Yes, and it's a fact, and this is what one has to recognise. India and China between them are responsible for 36 per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions. And, in China, there was a 4.7 per cent increase in carbon dioxide emissions and in India, 6.7 per cent increase in emissions. Whatever we do in this country is going to be swamped by the reality of what is happening in the far east. You are proposing to impose massive economic burdens upon the people who are least able to bear them in this country—those at the lower end of the income scale. I think that this is grossly immoral, as well as absurd.

I'll make the point at the outset that we haven't the time anymore to waste in arguing with climate change deniers; we've got more important things now to do, with urgency. I hope this Assembly will support the main motion today and the Government amendment reflecting the reality of the climate emergency that we face, but also the commitment and willingness of the Welsh Government to act. But my purpose in speaking today is to make clear that this carries significant implications, not just for Welsh Government, but for all of us individually. We will need to do more, much more. We'll have to make truly difficult choices that follow the evidence, do the right thing for the long-term future of our planet as well as for this and future generations, but which, in the short term, will be challenging politically and individually.

It will take brave national leadership to make the changes we and the planet need, because they will affect the way that we and our electorate will live and work, how we travel, how we take our holidays, what we buy, what we eat, and more. They will affect the way that we as Government prioritise investment, we regulate and legislate to modify behaviour, consumption and lifestyle. So, be under no illusions, some of the further measures we will need to take to meet the climate change emergency will be unpopular. Ministers will need to be brave, but we as Assembly Members and as political parties—if we agree deep down with the activists, the campaigners and the motion today, we'll need to park the politics and build a consensus for action that will meet the urgency and the scale of the challenge, the same leadership and spirit of political consensus that allowed Labour to bring forward the first ever Climate Change Act—Climate Change Act 2008—or to develop here the well-being of future generations Act in Wales. This will need to be harnessed if we are truly serious about this.

I was once invited into No. 10 as an environment Minister to explain a particularly difficult decision I'd made, which was absolutely the right decision but was deeply unpopular with a handful of colleagues and their constituents. I explained to the gathered special advisers at No. 10 how and why the decision was taken and how and why it was the right decision. The special advisers listened diligently, they quizzed me intelligently as I summed up that there was indeed an easy decision and there was the more difficult, evidence-based, long-term-thinking, right decision I had made. The advisers mulled this over and came to me with a conclusion: they would support me fully. They agreed I'd made the right decision, difficult as it was. As I left the room, the senior adviser turned and whispered to me, 'Next time, Huw, make the easy decision.'

Well, Ministers, colleagues, here in the Chamber, from here on, we'll have to take many more of the difficult but right decisions and build a consensus here in this Chamber and outside with the public too about the benefits that flow from the right decisions on tackling climate change and global warming, on reversing biodiversity and habitat loss, on creating truly sustainable, healthier communities and lifestyles in every single part of Wales.

I am delighted that the Minister for Environment, Energy and Rural Affairs has signalled that she'll be examining with her officials, even in the light of the low-carbon Wales plan and its 100 policies and proposals, how we can go further and faster to decarbonise. Now, I welcome that, because whilst Wales is indeed showing leadership—it's committed to 80 per cent reductions in net carbon emissions by 2050—we all know in our heart of hearts and in our heads that the actions that we've agreed nationally, but also internationally, are not sufficient to the day. Stern warned, the climate change committee repeatedly warned and warns—the international scientific consensus so spurned by those who would happily burn the planet to the ground now and trash the futures of our children and grandchildren—all warn repeatedly that we must act decisively and early, because the costs of doing so will be lower. Conversely, the costs of not doing so will be huge and could be terminal for our prospects on this planet.

So, we'll need to go further, and we'll take some tough decisions, supporting low-cost energy generation and demand-reduction options, like onshore wind as well as offshore; ramping up energy efficiency in homes and residential buildings; planting trees at an unprecedented rate; a step change in reducing, reusing and recycling waste; creating sustainable communities and transportation that make it easy, affordable, desirable and commonplace for people to travel far and near by public transport, walking and cycling; making the combustion engine extinct, instead of species and habitats; changing what we eat and how much we eat, how we manage the land for public good, including climate adaptation and modification, how we produce our food, how we fly less. In all areas of policy and integrated policy across Government, we'll need to move beyond voluntary measures and beyond incremental improvements towards step change and more direction.

So, let those of us in Wales who genuinely believe we are in a climate emergency work together to forge a new consensus, take the necessary actions to save the planet and, in so doing, save ourselves and our children too. Let's agree to make the right, but difficult decisions, the brave decisions, for this and future generations and for this one and only precious planet that we share with many other species for just a short moment in time. This is not our planet to trash or burn. We don't own it; we're just passing through, so let us tread lightly as we go.

Minister for Environment, Energy and Rural Affairs—Lesley Griffiths.

The Deputy Presiding Officer (Ann Jones) took the Chair.

Thank you, Presiding Officer. I welcome the opportunity to respond to this debate. I believe the Plaid Cymru motion is right to point to the stark warning from the scientific community and the need for urgent and rapid global response. Climate change is not a distant threat. As we debate today, the impacts of climate change are damaging the lives and livelihoods of millions of people across the globe. It is driving extreme weather events here in Wales, to which we are already having to adapt. 

Wales is only responsible for a tiny fraction of the world's emissions, but it is the view of this Welsh Government that we are capable as a nation of delivering change here in a way that will reduce our impact on the environment, make our society fairer and healthier, and that we can spur more rapid change across the UK and internationally. That is why I would like us to go further than the Plaid Cymru motion. I want us to focus not just on what we need to do, but on how we will focus our efforts to deliver it. Assembly Members and the public are rightly asking: if this is an emergency, what is our response and how can we judge progress? 

The Government amendment is to highlight our areas of strength on which we can build, and I have to say, Plaid Cymru's line on the climate change emergency—they aren't bad actions, but they are far short of what's in the Welsh Government plan, and wouldn't even deal with half of our greenhouse gas emissions, never mind take us anywhere near net zero. So, as a Government, we can use our progressive legislation to underpin the changes needed with legal force: the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 and our Environment (Wales) Act 2016.

We can maximise the contribution made by the public sector to tackling climate change and the loss of species and habitats, and we can play a co-ordinating role in driving change in other sectors, from fostering the creation of new green industries and community-led renewable energy projects to improving the evidence base by working with Natural Resources Wales, with Wales's universities, and with international experts.

On Monday, when I met with my ministerial counterparts from the UK and Scottish Governments, we all agreed there is a need to accelerate action on climate change. I'm disappointed that the Welsh Conservatives' amendment shows a complacency in the face of the climate emergency we face, and I would urge Members to vote with the Government today, to make the National Assembly the first Parliament in the world to vote in favour of the declaration of a climate emergency. The seed of our response to the climate emergency is contained in the 100 policies and proposals in the low-carbon delivery plan, but after receiving our advisory body—the UKCCC—advice tomorrow, I will review these.

In conclusion, Deputy Presiding Officer, to match the pace and scale of change needed, we now need to call for collective action across the whole of society, and that will include action based on a common resolve between our political parties.

I call on Leanne Wood to reply to the debate.

I'd like to start my contribution to this debate with a big 'diolch', 'thank you', to Greta Thunberg, the school strikers and Extinction Rebellion, but also to all of the other environmental campaigners and activists who've been raising this alarm for years, if not decades. You are succeeding, the conversation is changing—with some exceptions, of course.

The Extinction Rebellion protests have one central request: politicians must tell the truth about climate change and get serious about our ecological crisis. But the truth is, we are failing miserably. In Wales our carbon dioxide emissions have risen in recent years. Back in 2007, as part of the One Wales coalition agreement between Plaid Cymru and Labour, we agreed on binding greenhouse gas emission reductions, and to monitor this, a climate change commission was set up. What's happened instead? The targets have been missed and the climate change commission has now been abolished.

Now is not the time for the Welsh Government to congratulate themselves on progress and fall back on complacency. And now is not the time to applaud the UK Government's track record, when we've seen them cut sustainability funding. As Greta Thunberg has told us, 'The house is on fire', and I just don't see the panic. And that's why we reject both the Labour and the Tories' amendments today. It's just not true to say, Minister, that your actions go further. It looks too much like business as usual to me.

That's why the one demand of the climate change protestors, to set up citizens' assemblies, to ensure that Governments are held to account, is so key. Without that, the frustration that Governments are not telling the truth and are not doing everything they can to avert a climate emergency will just not go away. Our first step is to acknowledge the problem, and I'm glad, of course, that the Government announced its declaration of a climate emergency before today's vote, but that can't be the end of the matter. If the Welsh Government is honest about the climate emergency, the prospect of a new M4 around Newport would be scrapped. If we understood the severity of our ecological crisis, the idea of concreting over the Gwent levels would be ruled out as a catastrophe. We can no longer use twentieth-century answers to our twenty-first century problems. We have to think about how Government investment is used to combat and alleviate these problems to build resilience, and we must oppose investment that does the opposite. The M4 black route is a key test as to what this climate emergency declaration means. We all know that, if we're being honest with ourselves. We have to stop chasing jobs at any cost. There are no jobs on a dead planet. 

So, we want to see clear commitments and actions from this Government to make real its declaration of a climate emergency. We want to see the rapid emissions reductions and we want to see those citizens' assemblies, and nothing less will do. 

Thank you. The proposal is to agree the motion without amendment. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Therefore, we defer voting under this item until voting time.

Voting deferred until voting time.

Deputy Presiding Officer, I wonder if you'd take a point of order before we move to the vote.

Yes, I will take the point of order.

I wanted to understand why it was that those who'd gathered on the Senedd steps to show their support for the motion that we've just passed, or are about to pass, were not permitted to come and hear the debate, because I've always been proud of the fact that we are an open Assembly and we're keen to ensure that the people of Wales know what we're debating. I was told that only six people were allowed in to hear the debate when many more would have liked to have heard it.

Okay. I was not aware of that. I'll have a discussion with the Llywydd and we'll think about what you've said, but it's on the record. Thank you.

We now go to voting time. Unless three Members wish for the bell to be rung, I proceed to voting time.