Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Environment, Energy and Rural Affairs – in the Senedd at 1:52 pm on 15 May 2019.
Absolutely not. I think the First Minister, from the day he came into post back in December, has made it very clear that biodiversity and climate change mitigation are absolutely one of his top priorities. We all have to look at biodiversity right across Government in relation to our policies.
You're absolutely right—that report last week was hugely concerning. I was saying in my answer to Joyce Watson that it's certainly very sobering reading. You'll be aware that we have the low-carbon delivery plan; again, the First Minister launched it back in March. The proposals and policies—there are 100 policies and proposals in that that, if we implement them, will make great strides in relation to biodiversity and climate change. I was saying that I think biodiversity is as much of a threat as climate change; it's right up there.
You'll also be aware that I, myself, and my Scottish counterparts and UK Government counterparts, asked the UK climate change commission for some advice on the back of the inter-governmental panel report into whether we would reach the levels required by the Paris agreement. I received that advice a week last Thursday. I've met with the UK Committee on Climate Change, some of the members, on two occasions in the past fortnight. Officials are now digesting that advice—it's about 300 pages—to see whether we do need to change our policies, but you will appreciate the low-carbon delivery plan was only launched in March, and I think we need to carry on with those policies and proposals. But it could be that we need to change.
The declaration, I think, was a very positive and strong declaration. I think you can only use the word 'emergency' very sparingly; it's not a word that you can throw around. So, a great deal of thought went into that, and I was very pleased that this Parliament voted then to be the first—we were the first Parliament in the world to endorse that climate change emergency. So, there's a huge amount of work to do. We need to check all our policies and proposals, but I do think we need to start with that low-carbon delivery plan, ensure that we take that forward. But it is absolutely something that we're all looking at across Government.