The Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015

Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Finance and Trefnydd – in the Senedd at 1:40 pm on 16 October 2019.

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Photo of Rebecca Evans Rebecca Evans Labour 1:40, 16 October 2019

Well, you'll be familiar with our 'Prosperity for All' low-carbon plan for Wales, which sets out 100 of the different actions that we are taking across Government in terms of ensuring that decarbonisation is very much at the centre of the work that we are doing. But I think it's important to do this within the context of our Environment (Wales) Act 2016, and that puts in place a really robust governance system for Welsh Ministers

So, following advice from the advisory body—the UK Committee on Climate Change—we've increased, as you know, our long-term pathway to respond to a climate emergency: so, from 80 per cent to 95 per cent by the end of 2050, and the Welsh Government is committed to putting a higher emissions reduction target of at least 95 per cent into law. And that really does mean that our pathways have to change and that the decisions that we make have to be made in a different way.

But I think that our low-carbon delivery plans, going forward, will also continually need to show how each Minister's contributing to the actions within our carbon budget, and, as a result, all Ministers will need to reflect on the spending decisions that they have made and that they will make in setting their detailed main expenditure group spending plans.

Within my own portfolio, I think that we can look particularly to the work that's going on in procurement, and that plays a really important role in helping to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. And one of the things that we've done to assess those decisions that we've already made and then to inform better decision making in future is to introduce a decarbonisation dashboard that was developed by Value Wales, and that shows the carbon dioxide emissions for categories of various spends across Government. So, that allows us to look at the decisions that we've made and then seek opportunities to make better decisions in future.