Item 8 on our agenda this afternoon is the statement by the Minister for the Environment, Energy and Rural Affairs on the climate emergency, and I call on the Minister for rural affairs, Lesley Griffiths.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, we have maintained momentum in our response to the climate emergency. This includes new, multimillion investments in flood and coastal erosion risk management, emergency response capability, active travel schemes, low-emission vehicles, superfast broadband in rural areas, tree planting and a further round of the circular economy fund.

In April I made a commitment to provide a further statement to outline how we will go further and faster in pursuit of a zero-carbon Wales to deliver prosperity and equality, as well as clean air, water and land. We will achieve this by strengthening the resilience of our natural and built environments to the impact of a changing climate and by enabling an economic transformation that will displace our reliance on fossil fuels, creating the industries and the jobs of the future.

We have begun work to create a national forest for Wales, launching our community woodlands fund, a fourfold increase in woodland creation budget. We will continue to engage with the Welsh farming sector to understand how we can work with them to expand the role they play in maintaining and growing Wales's carbon stores.

We remain on track to meet our goal of investing £350 million in flood and coastal erosion risk. In April we announced a £60 million investment program for 2020-1, in addition to £14 million in funding to repair flood defences and transport infrastructure damaged during the intense storms that affected thousands of people across Wales earlier this year. During the pandemic, we've also established a new programme to address the risk to our communities from coal tips.

Our action on fuel poverty has supported thousands of households to improve their health and to offer protection against rising energy costs through investment of more than £300 million. Whilst the COVID-19 pandemic has caused disruption to the installation of energy efficiency measures within people's homes, I intend to provide a further statement in September to announce new plans and delivery mechanisms to realise even greater benefits for equality, for emissions, for local supply chains and jobs.

Welsh Government is also investing directly through the innovative housing programme, designed to test new approaches to building social and affordable housing that meets the highest environmental standards. The 1,400 homes being delivered in the first three years of the programme include 76 in Ruthin, which we hope will be the first in the UK to deliver net zero, whole-life carbon and are being built using Welsh timber. Over 600 more futureproof homes will be built in the coming year.

During the pandemic, we have seen a significant increase in both walking and cycling, and a dramatic increase in home working, which have significantly reduced emissions. To support communities to lock in positive travel habits, Welsh Government has provided £15 million of new funding for local authorities across Wales to reallocate road space, building on record levels of investment in active travel last year.

Wales has been a leader in the UK and globally in the shift to a circular economy. This year we've consulted on our strategy to achieve zero waste and have expanded the circular economy fund for business. The first round of grants saw investment in Welsh businesses to divert 6,000 tonnes of waste from landfill, saving more than 4,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide.

Wales is home to world-leading research to address the emissions from carbon-intensive industries, including steel and aviation. Working with our regional skills partnerships, we are working to ensure all regions of Wales have the skills needed for the adoption and expansion of emerging low-carbon technology.

In response to the pandemic, Wales has provided the most generous support package for business anywhere in the UK. However, we have made this support conditional on companies signing up to the Welsh Government economic contract, including a commitment to decarbonisation.

Public sector leadership in this area is vital. I will be publishing a Welsh public sector net zero reporting guide to help us understand the emissions footprint of Welsh public bodies, identify priority sources of emissions and monitor progress towards reaching our goal of a carbon neutral public sector by 2030. Our Welsh Government energy service has invested more than £96 million in public sector renewable energy projects, which over their lifetime will deliver 1 million tonnes of carbon savings and over £280 million of financial savings. The publication of the Welsh Government energy service's annual report today showcases our progress in the last year.

Earlier this year, we published our policy to require all new energy installations to include an element of local ownership to share more widely the benefits of our energy transition. In 2018, we reached 780 MW of community and locally-owned renewable energy capacity, and we remain on track to achieve 1 GW by 2030.

Alongside our support for renewables, Welsh Government's policy objective is to avoid the continued extraction of fossil fuels in all its forms. Today, I am launching a consultation on our draft coal policy to support a responsible transition. As we end our reliance on coal, on which Wales's modern economy was built, we look to the contribution Wales can make to the marine energy revolution. We've invested in 10 marine energy projects, which have secured more than £100 million of European investment, in both north and south Wales.

I have described some of the important progress being made in Wales, and in the coming weeks we will publish a Welsh Government engagement plan, setting out how we will engage all communities and industries in Wales to strengthen our collective efforts. This will include our plans for a digital Climate Week for Wales in November to support the development of our next all-Wales low-carbon plan for 2021 to 2026.

I hope all Members of the Senedd will encourage all public bodies, businesses and communities in Wales to be part of creating a truly all-Wales plan to overcome the climate emergency, supporting our economy to recover from the impact of COVID-19, creating new industries and jobs, to deliver a prosperous, healthier and more equal Wales. Diolch.

Thank you, Minister, for your statement this afternoon on this very important subject, obviously building on the announcement that you as a Government made last year, supported, I believe, by all the parties in the Assembly at that time. I'd like to touch on, first of all, your point in your statement around resilience, and, obviously, with the COVID crisis, you've had to make some reallocations within your budget. The regulatory body that, obviously, oversees much of this work is Natural Resources Wales. They've had a realignment in their budget of some £7.5 million. How confident are you that the regulator—? And I've been as critical of NRW as anyone, but, if they haven't got the tools to do the job, it's going to be very challenging for them to build that resilience into either flood prevention or other fields of the environment. So, how confident are you, with that budget cut, that they will be able to meet the expectations you're placing on them to make improvements in this area and live up to your expectations? 

I'd also like to point out about Government delivery, when it comes to tree planting, which is another part of your statement that has been constantly raised time and time again, last year, only 80 hectares of fresh tree planting was undertaken in Wales, against a target of 2,000 hectares. Your statement, obviously, is littered with various commitments, various goals, various objectives—on something that is as simple as tree planting, which has been such a longstanding commitment of this Government for the last 10 years plus, each year, it has been getting worse and worse for tree planting in Wales, it has. So, how confident can we be as Assembly Members—and, indeed, the people of Wales when they're reading your statement—that you're going to be able to deliver on those commitments when something as plain as this target that the Government itself set itself has been missed by a country mile? I think we need to have real confidence that you're able to step up to the plate on that front. 

Thank you. [Interruption.] No. No, sorry—you've had more than two minutes, and it's a minute for a contribution. So, thanks, and there's a couple of questions in there. So, Lesley Griffiths. 

Thank you, Andrew R.T. Davies, for your questions. Clearly, we are in a position we don't want to be in relation to having to repurpose and reset our budget in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, and I absolutely understand people's concerns around the budget of Natural Resources Wales. I think you will have heard me say in my oral Assembly questions session last week that we are continuing to work with NRW; I met with the chair and chief executive last week to look at what flexibility we are able to offer them to make sure that they can fulfil all their statutory duties and, as you say, the things that they are responsible for on our behalf. We are making sure they have that flexibility. There are ongoing discussions between officials and NRW, as well as myself and the chair and chief executive, and I do hope, as we go through the year, I will be able to provide that assurance to Members. 

In relation to forestry, you are quite right, we have not been, and are still not, in a position that I would want to be when it comes to the number of fresh trees that we are planting. You'll be aware of the strategy that we set out around increasing woodland by at least 2,000 hectares per year from 2020 to 2030, and we are building up to that. As you say, last year was disappointing. A lot of that was due to the timing of the rural development programme funding, and the funds that we made available last year will support tree planting in the upcoming planting season this winter that's coming up now. Last year, we did fund the replanting of 1,500 hectares of trees to restock existing woodland.

We have taken some significant steps to increase the amount of woodland by launching a new window of Glastir woodland creation. That's had a fourfold increase this year in the budget to £8 million, so I hope that shows the commitment, and I hope that gives you confidence that that funding is available. I think it's really important we work with our partners to make sure we fulfil our targets. You'll be aware that we've also begun to establish a national forest for Wales, which was a First Minister's manifesto commitment, and, just last week, we launched a new scheme to create new woodlands near local communities. 

So, Government can't do it on its own, and I would hope that we will all encourage people to have a look at those new woodland schemes that we've had. We've got a number of demonstration projects this year, and that includes a £2.1 million community woodland scheme, which, as I mentioned, was launched last week.

Well, tree planting wasn't disappointing, Minister—it's quite embarrassing, to be frank. But there we are. And there's a lot of catching up to be done, and I'm not convinced that the current trajectory that you're offering is going to be enough. But I hadn't appreciated that we're limited to such an extent on time, so I'll have to move on.

You talk a good game very often, and you've been doing so on the circular economy for a number of years now. This Government could have introduced a deposit-return scheme years ago if it had wished to do, but you haven't. We're still waiting for decisions on banning single-use plastic. We're still waiting on decisions to be done around introducing greater producer responsibility. So, give us a date, Minister. Tell us when we will see these being implemented instead of being talked about, as you have been doing for the last 10 years. 

I welcome the reference to 76 houses, of course—the net zero carbon homes—being built in Ruthin, as you can imagine. But, of course, we're way behind the curve on an international level in that respect. So, what's happening to mainstream these housing techniques and these kinds of houses into the developments that are happening, and not still being referred to as these novel projects that you can flag up in oral statements now and again? 

Could you tell us what role the Welsh Government will be playing to support the proposed tidal lagoon that's been announced today at Mostyn? I'd like to understand the role that Government is playing to make that a reality, particularly following the bad news in relation to the Swansea Bay tidal lagoon. We need to look now to Mostyn to try and unlock some of that potential that we know we have around the Welsh coast.

And, finally, the Welsh Government's energy service. Well, it's all about scale and pace, isn't it, and I've raised this with you before. What plans have you got to ramp up some of this work, because, since its establishment in 2018, of course, this Parliament has declared a climate emergency. So, in the meantime, has its work intensified? Because we know that achieving a 20 per cent efficiency saving across Welsh domestic housing stock will need to target 870,000 households, at a cost of £5 billion. So, are we still going to bump along, or are we serious about the transitional change that we need to see?

Diolch, Llyr, for those questions. In response to the deposit scheme and the single use, both of those sit within the portfolio of Hannah Blythyn. I'm certainly aware that the deposit scheme—the issue around ensuring there weren't perverse outcomes was very important, and one of the reasons that we hadn't taken that forward. But I'm sure the Deputy Minister will be able to provide you with a date, as you request, in due course.

Around the—. The circular economy is very important, and you'll be aware of the £6.5 million fund that was launched earlier this year to illustrate the approach that we're developing in the context of the strategy, as it's obviously designed to support the wider use of recycled material. And I know the Waste and Resources Action Programme has awarded the first capital grants under the £6.5 million fund that I referred to to Welsh manufacturers. But, as I say, that sits within Hannah Blythyn's portfolio. 

I thought it was very exciting to hear about the tidal lagoon in Mostyn. I've always thought that was something that could be taken forward, and it has lots of other benefits apart from energy; you'll be aware of the impact it could have on flooding, for instance. So, my officials will continue to work very closely in relation to that. Tomorrow, myself and, I think, Ken Skates are also attending a marine energy summit. And, just this morning, I met with Innogy energy, who, as you'll be aware, are expanding the windfarm off the coast of north Wales. And we spoke this morning, following the devastating news, as you referred to, yesterday in relation to Airbus, about looking to see if workers of Airbus have got those transferable skills that might be required. I think it's really important that we have a look at that. As you know, around the Wales energy service, I brought forward a report today, which will fully bring you up to date with all the issues to which you refer.

Whilst we acknowledge and welcome all the green projects you've outlined in your report, Minister, I have to return to the subject that R.T. Davies mentioned earlier on, and that's the business of tree planting. I'm not going to go into the details of it; I've got the details in front of me now. You have given a fairly comprehensive answer to R.T.'s question, but I have to say that we can't have any meaningful discussion on the mitigation of climate change without addressing our record on tree planting in Wales. And we have to look at the other aspects of tree planting—their effect on stemming floods, which are having a devastating effect on many communities in Wales, often outlined in contributions to Plenary debates, and, again, said to be another manifestation of global warming, although there's no scientific evidence that this is a man-made phenomenon.

But we have to say that the Minister for economy and infrastructure and skills has emphasised that recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic in Wales is to be a green-led economy. Now, surely, trees, and all the environmentally friendly products that can be produced from the timber they yield, must play an important part in that new, green economy. Woodlands provide many of the things we need and use—construction materials, paper pulp and woodchip, packaging and pallets, as well as wood fuel for power plants. Timber and wood products also offer a cost-effective and valuable alternative to fossil-fuel-rich materials, such as steel and concrete. And there are, of course, all the by-products of the forest: non-timber products, such as game, honey, berries, fungi—the list is quite endless. It could be said the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 demands that you produce the forests that you have already said that you would produce.

I would never say that we are planting enough trees, and it is incredibly disappointing to have had last year's figures. But I hope that the policies we're bringing forward, the funding I referred to in my answer to Andrew—that we've increased it fourfold—shows the commitment to doing that. Also, you'll be aware of our agricultural scheme that we will be bringing forward; there's 'Sustainable Farming and our Land'—that has particular focus around planting more trees. So, it's really important that we continue to have those discussions with our farmers to make sure that any barriers—. And I've always found, talking about tree planting to farmers, that they're very keen to find opportunities to be able to help us with our tree-planting targets, but sometimes there have been barriers put in place—with the common agricultural policy, for instance. So, we do have—. There's an opportunity, post-EU transition, to make sure that our new agricultural scheme does support us.

I agree with you about—. We've made it very clear that our recovery from COVID-19 should be a green recovery. And I think using Welsh timber for housing is an area that the Minister for Housing and Local Government is always talking to me about—she wants to see more Welsh timber used. You mentioned all the benefits of producing more timber, so that's an area that, again, we are working on. I also think, on the green recovery, we need to lock in people's behaviours as well. You will have heard me say on previous occasions during the pandemic that we've seen more people cycling and walking, and more people working from home, and that's helped us reduce our carbon emissions and we need to lock in that behaviour. So, I outlined various schemes that we're bringing forward and significant funding to enable that to happen. 

Can I also thank the Minister for her statement? Can I start off by saying that I have serious concerns about how climate change is affecting the weather? Anyone who went to school in the 1970s will remember almost continual drizzle. Now, when it rains, we have torrential rain and flooding. There have been more British floods this year than the first 50 years of the last century, putting it into some sort of context. Carbon burns and forms carbon dioxide, which traps heat. We know about greenhouse gases; we know that Venus is hotter than Mercury despite it being a lot, lot further away. Can I ask people just to study the science, not make things up?

Does the Minister agree that we need more tree soak-away areas and to widen the rivers and streams and put bends in them to reduce the risk of flooding? On trees, I think it’s quite straightforward: we set area targets and make someone responsible in each area for achieving those targets. Setting a target for Wales is never going to be achieved, because it’s everybody’s responsibility and nobody’s.

We need to plan to deal with the changes in weather and its effect on lots of communities, including my own. We also need to reduce the greenhouse gases being released because that’s just going to make it worse. It affects all of our communities; it affects all of us, and it’s something that we are expected to do something about.

Thank you, Mike Hedges. I think you’re quite right about the weather. It’s hard to believe that it was only during February recess when the First Minister and I were visiting areas, particularly around the Rhondda, that had been devastated by storm Dennis. The previous week, I’d been visiting Llanrwst up in north Wales that had been devastated by storm Ciara. And then, if we needed to be reminded that it’s not just in the winter, I think it was two weeks ago today, around Pentre again, that we had, I think it was, in 15 minutes, a month’s worth of rain. So, we are clearly seeing a pattern.

I went to school in the 1970s and I certainly remember lots of people referring to rain 'spitting', but we don’t see that now, you’re right: we have these torrential rain storms, unfortunately. So, we do need to look at our flooding defences. We’ve put significant funding into flood defences, but we don’t just want to see concrete; we want to see those natural solutions as well, and obviously trees form part of that. And you’re right: it is everybody’s responsibility. Government can’t do it on its own and we all need to look at how we can plant more trees. And that’s why I’m excited about the Local Places for Nature funding, because I think the impact of £10,000 just on a local area could be very significant. So, we need to do all we can to encourage that.

You’re quite right, again, about individuals. So, I hope Members will have picked up about our low-carbon heroes, and that, as we look towards the COVID-19 pandemic, we want to hear from people on how they changed their lifestyle during the COVID pandemic to see how we can achieve that carbon-neutral public sector, for instance, that we all want to see. And I referred to more people walking, more people cycling, more people working from home. One of the stories I’ve been told this week from someone is that they haven’t bought any new clothes or furniture; they’ve upcycled and recycled in a way that they haven’t done before. We’re seeing more people growing their own vegetables. So, I think it would be really good to capture all those stories and then, hopefully, make people realise that it’s about all of us changing our behaviour. And we are going to ask a great deal of people, but in order to make a difference, we are going to have to change our lifestyles.

Minister, I notice that the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales devoted a lot of her recent report to housing and noted that less than half of the new homes that we need to build each year are currently being built, and emissions from the housing sector, although down by nearly a third since 1990, that decrease has slowed considerably in recent years. So, it seems to me that we need to set a target that’s much more ambitious for new house building and we need to build better. So, will you now look at this and work with your colleague Julie James to ensure that it receives both the policy and the financial priority needed to make housing fit for a cleaner environment? 

Thank you, David Melding. And, yes, I'm certainly very happy to speak to my ministerial colleague, the Minister for Local Government and Housing. As I say, we do talk quite a lot about housing, and she's very keen to use more timber. I mentioned, and I referred to the innovative housing programme. We've also obviously had the consultation on Part L and Part F of the building regulations and what we want to avoid is expensive retrofitting down the line. We know that, in order to retrofit the current housing stock—. We know we've got some of the oldest housing stock in Wales and that requires energy efficiency measures. We need to avoid that at all costs. We need to make sure that the houses we're building now don't have those sorts of problems. These are discussions that I do have continually with the housing Minister.

I hope, when I was the housing Minister, we made some significant strides, and I know the Minister is talking to developers about how we can do that going forward, but those are ongoing discussions. Decarbonising the housing stock has to be a priority for the Welsh Government and it is for me and it is for Julie James. And I know she's made it very clear, in her response to the affordable housing review, that the expectation is that social housing providers will lead the way in terms of building the next generation of homes for Wales and that they're built to near-zero-carbon standards.

Sticking with housing then, for the time being, that's absolutely right, and the social housing that's being built is of a much better standard than most of the private sector that's on offer. And that's why, it seems to me, that having consulted on Part L, I would urge the Government to get on with actually implementing a much higher standard of Part L so that we only have homes built to zero-carbon standards in the future. Because otherwise we're going to simply have to retrofit the houses that are being built today, as was pointed out by John Gummer in his frustration last week over the lack of seriousness with which the Prime Minister seems to be taking this climate emergency. 

I completely agree that we have to have a green recovery and not simply go back to our old ways. So, not only do we need to decarbonise our housing stock, but we need to decarbonise our transport, and reallocating road space to active travel is very welcome—this £15million you mentioned in your statement. But I also would like to ask you how we're going to decarbonise our food system, because, at the moment, our food system is organised to suit the large supermarkets. For example, eggs laid in north Wales currently have to travel all the way to Norwich to be packaged by a large supermarket, into their boxes, and then they go back to north Wales to be sold as Welsh eggs. This is really obviously very, very expensive of carbon emissions and we need—

Can you come to a conclusion please? 

—a food system that is much more localised, so that people can buy local food from local producers and there are far fewer food miles. So, I wonder if you could tell us how we're going to do that. Thank you.

Thank you, Jenny. So, around the Part L consultation, as I said, the current consultation does outline our proposals to improve the energy efficiency of new dwellings in Wales from 2020 to 2025. I mentioned in my previous answer that we want to ensure that we don't build houses that do need retrofitting in 25 years or 50 years down the line. This year, we will make a significant and necessary step change in our energy and carbon performance in new housing. Our preferred option is a 37 per cent saving on current carbon emissions, and those proposals include fabric performance, as well as an increased role for renewables and/or low-carbon heating systems.

I mentioned in my statement that we are proposing phasing out the use of high-carbon fossil fuels, and we want to move to a cleaner way of heating our homes with the introduction of low-carbon heating, and, of course, renewable energy generation is very important. When I was speaking to Inergy this morning—. Those community benefits are very important to me and you'll be aware of the targets that we set. 

Food miles is, again, an area where I think we've made real improvements during the COVID-19 pandemic. People have really appreciated our local Welsh food and drink producers in a way that, perhaps, they hadn't done before, and what we want to do is lock in that behaviour. So, we have a variety of schemes that we're promoting and supporting to ensure that we continue to do that.

I know that you're very interested in horticulture, and again, that's an area—. It's only 1 per cent of the agricultural sector, and it would be good if we could produce more of our fruit and veg in Wales, and I'm looking at ways that we can do that. I know that you and I have had many discussions about that, but I hope to bring some announcements to the Senedd later this year.

Thank you very much, Minister.