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.