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.