Decarbonisation

Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Environment, Energy and Rural Affairs – in the Senedd at 1:32 pm on 19 June 2019.

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Photo of Mike Hedges Mike Hedges Labour 1:32, 19 June 2019

I think that it's very important to get to net zero, but I think that we need to be more ambitious than that—I think actually start taking more carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere than we are putting in. So, net zero is a good way, but we need to go past that, and we can go past that by planting more trees and more plants. Through photosynthesis, they turn carbon dioxide into oxygen—it takes it out of the atmosphere. I think that's really important. I very much welcome this idea of planting trees. but can we have some targets? Can we say how many trees we're going to plant in each area each year? And that's not a stick to beat the Government—you say you're going to plant 1,000 but you only planted 900—but it's to actually let everybody know what is being attempted to be achieved. And I certainly wouldn't criticise you for planting 900 when it was meant to be 1,000, but it really is important we get these trees planted, to get the carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.