The next item is a statement on climate change, and I call on the Deputy Minister to make that statement. Lee Waters.

Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd. Today, the Climate Change Committee published its third UK climate risk independent assessment. It makes for difficult reading. It sets out 61 risks and opportunities from climate change to Wales, including to business infrastructure, housing, the natural environment and health. Twenty-six of the 61 risks have increased in severity over the last five years. We can see this for ourselves. In 2018, we witnessed the hottest summer on record. Two years later, Wales recorded our wettest February and our worst flooding in 40 years. These are no longer freak events; this unpredictable and extreme weather is something we're going to have to get used to.

Within the lifetime of our children, the report warns of wetter winters, drier and hotter summers and sea level rises of up to two and a half feet along the Welsh coastline. These could have devastating effects. In every category studied by the report, there are a raft of risks with the highest possible urgency score. This advice is very timely. The establishment of a new climate change ministry makes it easier to mobilise the main areas of devolved Government that have the greatest impact on our emissions: housing, transport, energy, planning, environmental policy and digital ways of working.

This institutional change allows us to build on the foundations of vital policy work in recent years. Our adaption plan, 'A Climate Conscious Wales', is now in its second year of delivery. Our national flood strategy, published in October 2020, sets out how we will manage flood risk over the next decade. And this year we are investing £65 million in flood risk management, the largest amount invested in Wales in a single year. What’s more, our programme for government commits to funding flood protection for more than 45,000 homes across Wales, and delivering a nature-based flood management system in all major river catchments to expand wetland and woodland habitats.

We are doing a lot in Wales. Our legal framework in legislating for the needs of future generations is being studied across the world. Our practical action on recycling is nudging the top of the global league table. Our tax on single-use carrier bags has been widely followed and has succeeded in significantly cutting down on plastic use.

Since 1990, Welsh greenhouse gas emissions have fallen by 31 per cent. But, Llywydd, the scale of our challenge is stark. In the next 10 years, we are going to need to more than double all the cuts we have managed over the last 30 years. If we simply maintain our current pace, we will not achieve net zero until around 2090. We have committed to reach this by 2050, but given the gravity of today’s new advice from the adaptation committee, we cannot be complacent, nor can we assume that this target will remain static.

Over the last 16 months we have all become used to public policy being based on the science. We have all become familiar with the First Minister telling us that the data gives us headroom to make choices, and as the data and the science change, the choices we have to make alter. We have followed this approach to tackle coronavirus. We must follow the same approach to tackle climate change.

This Government will take a lead, but we cannot do it alone—no Government can. Each business and organisation, and each of us, have to consider our own responsibilities, to consider the impact of the choices we make, the way we heat our homes, why and how we travel, what we eat, where we shop, how we relax, the way we work, and where we work.

This will throw up tensions for all of us. We should acknowledge that. These aren't simple trade-offs. We have to work them through together. But nor should we assume that these choices will make our lives worse. Many of the things we need to do to respond to the science on climate change will bring benefits: new jobs, new technological advances, cleaner air, quieter streets and fewer accidents, less time commuting, a stronger sense of community, flourishing nature on our doorstep, nurturing and nourishing our well-being. These are all things we’ve already seen in the last year or so. Things that seemed impossible proved to be possible, and sometimes better.

None of this is easy, but as today’s report from the Climate Change Committee sets out again, the price of not doing so is too great. Today, we are publishing our response to the Climate Change Committee's progress report from last December. We’ve made decent progress and are on track for the 2020 target. We will outline the full Government response to today's report in due course to the Senedd, along with our next emissions reduction plan, a net zero Wales, as we look towards COP26 and COP Cymru.

It is important that this Senedd contributes fully to developing Wales’s response. We must all play our part, and we must test each other’s ideas to make sure we are doing all that we can in pursuit of a fairer, greener and stronger Wales. Diolch.

Thank you, Deputy Minister. Now, the publication of the CCC report is a serious wake-up call for Wales, and especially you as the Welsh Government. In fact, towards the end of the last Senedd, the Climate Change, Environment and Rural Affairs Committee's 'Report on the Climate Change (Wales) Regulations 2021' warned that

'rhetoric must now be met with bold and decisive action.'

It is all well and good your programme for government stating that you

'have the vision and ambition to address the climate and nature emergency', but your past record and the CCC report do not support that. Of the 61 risks and opportunities, more action is needed in Wales now to address 32 of them. In fact, sustaining current action is only deemed appropriate in five cases. Therefore, Llywydd, I welcome the Minister's recognition that this report makes for difficult reading.

Many of us are seeing climate change first hand in our constituencies due to flooding. The situation is getting worse, yet our communities are not being listened to. Since 2019, I have been calling for an independent inquiry into flooding in the Conwy valley and, more recently, a similar request has been made by the community, and, indeed, Members here now, in Rhondda Cynon Taf. Well, it's time for you to rethink, because section H3 on people, communities and buildings states that more action is needed, and that risks are not being managed effectively. So, will you commit to doing more on flooding than the just the two paltry lines in the programme for government?

Urgent action is needed to address the risk to nature also. Section N1 notes the magnitude of current and future risks from climate change, both now and in the future, and is considered to be high due to the number of species so adversely affected and more likely to be affected going forward. This is no surprise because Welsh Labour has presided over a decline in Welsh species over the past five years. So, I will be pleased to hear what targets you will set regarding wildlife conservation to monitor and inspire progress.

The report also details urgent action needed to improve preparedness and surveillance of pests, pathogens and invasive species, and the report found that important knowledge gaps remain on the issues of agriculture and forestry. So, Minister, what urgent steps are you taking to rectify this knowledge gap? Can you also confirm that your response will look to include details on how you will fund and implement the necessary new surveillance structures?

There is also an increased risk posed by heat. Heat-related deaths in Wales could increase from 2.4 per 100,000 people a year in 2016 to 6.5 per 100,000 by the 2050s. So, Minister or Deputy Minister, can you confirm that the Welsh Government will look to build increased cooling demand into your future energy policies, and look at introducing a scheme to incentivise the uptake of passive cooling methods?

Finally, the study also found that current policy lacks detailed actions and specific outcomes for the marine sector and environment. So, what action is the Welsh Government taking to bring forward detailed implementation plans to address the impacts of climate change on fisheries within the fishery sector objective, or for marine species? We need to discuss this CCC report in far greater detail, but I'm glad that we have started today. Diolch. 

Thank you for those remarks. I completely agree that more action is needed and I believe I set that out, and I agree that we need to discuss this in far more detail. I don't think today is the time to do that. I think Janet Finch-Saunders set out a series of fair and reasonable challenges and, as she said, rhetoric must be matched by bold and decisive action. And I would say to her, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. That is true for her and her party just as it is for ours, and standing up and calling for us to build six-lane motorways through protected wetlands does not correlate with that challenge she poses to me. So, I think we all have to reflect on what the impact this science has on many of the policy positions we've held until now, and together try and find a way that matches our rhetoric with what the science tells us we need to do. 

I would just say briefly to close that more than half of what we need to do falls in areas that are not reserved to the Senedd and to the Welsh Government. The UK Government has a significant role to play to make some of the macro changes, and we need to work closely and carefully with them. At the moment, we do see the world in a slightly different way. Their enormous road building programme, for example, is not consistent with the science. It's not a policy that we shall be following, but we do all of us need to be putting the rhetoric to one side and carefully studying the science, and thinking through its implications for policy. And I look forward to working together to try and reach as much consensus as we can.

Thank you for your statement, Deputy Minister, and for sharing a number of reports with us today. It's quite clear that we must tackle the nature emergency alongside the climate emergency, as we've already discussed, and we can't deal with one without dealing also with the other. But now, a number of environmental and nature groups are concerned about the funding of projects and policies by this Government. The concerns about the shared prosperity fund and new funds to replace EU funding are numerous.

First of all, the criteria for these funds either ignore or downplay environmental concerns, and therefore the funding isn't planned in a way that helps us in Wales to develop a joined-up response to the nature and climate emergency. It's likely that key domestic legislation in Wales will not be included in the process of decision making on funding projects, and this specifically includes the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 and the Environment (Wales) Act 2016. This means that projects could conflict with the legislative mechanisms in Wales in ensuring sustainable development and maintaining and supporting biodiversity.

There is a key EU fund that doesn't appear to have been included: a tailor-made EU programme for diversity under the LIFE programme. It has been crucial in Wales in terms of delivering nature restoration projects. With the UK Government promising not a penny less, I would ask you, Deputy Minister, what corresponds to the EU LIFE programme and how is that put in place in order to restore and protect nature?

Turning to something that has already come up, actually, the emphasis in the Welsh Government's ambitions for the environment is largely focused on land-based solutions and a lot of it is on woodland creation. Of course, I welcome this, but as has already been mentioned, actually, I think that more emphasis needs to be put on our marine environment. Could you please, Minister, make a statement on how you will ensure parity between green and blue spaces, terrestrial marine habitats and landscapes, in your approach to addressing climate change and biodiversity decline?

Finally, it's clear that the Government has an ambitious agenda. Everyone has a part to play in the journey towards net zero. The task ahead of us is substantial, and we want everyone to be able to play a part. Whilst it's clear how the Government intends to put this work in place—it's becoming a lot more clear—there is not as much clarity on how normal citizens of all ages, in addition to communities, can contribute to this as well, to addressing the emergency. I'd like to ask how the Government will support individuals and communities to act for the good of nature and the environment at a local level. Diolch yn fawr.

Thank you for that series of questions. I completely agree that the changes post EU—to what were structural funds—are very, very troubling. As Delyth Jewell said, we have over a number of years developed a strategic approach for a range of programmes, particularly focused on biodiversity and climate change, which now don't neatly fit into the structures the UK Government has set out. Indeed, they seem more concerned about giving Conservative MPs local discretion to fund things that will look good for them, rather than taking a whole-system approach, which is what the science today demands that we need to do. So, I think we all need, as a Senedd, to make sure that those concerns are understood, and that we develop those funding programmes as we go forward in a way that is consistent with the responsibilities we all have to tackle the nature and climate change emergency.

On the specific point on the EU LIFE programme, I will write to her on that. I'm not aware of any equivalent replacement in the funds, but I'd be keen to take that up with the UK Government, and if we're able to do that on a cross-party basis, I think that would be all the better.

In terms of the impact of marine, I completely agree. In my briefing, it's referred to as 'blue carbon habitats'. I must say I've never heard that phrase before, but it is rather neat, because the marine environment both stores carbon and promotes biodiversity through saltmarsh, seagrass beds and shellfish beds, and they are under considerable pressure from sea level rises and acidification. NRW are currently mapping areas of marine and coastal habitats, including those that store and sequester blue carbon, to understand the potential and further opportunities for restoration of these important habitats. I think Delyth Jewell is right to highlight that as an important piece of work, to put that on an important footing.

The final point about individual action and making that relationship, not just on a large land management approach but in terms of human beings and families and communities, and restoring that link to our behaviour and its impact on our local environment, I think is a critical one. One of the things I hope to be doing under the deep dive on tree planting that Julie James announced last week is to both look at the large-scale issue of aforestation, but also to look at the individual, the community level. I think our nature networks fund has shown real progress in a very short period of time in local biodiversity projects and showing that relationship that individuals can have. But I'd like to do more than that. I'm particularly interested in what we can learn from our Wales for Africa project, where, in Mbale in Uganda, our funding, working with the Size of Wales project, is giving people there free trees to plant. I think in something we are telling Africans to do with our money, we should be applying those principles to ourselves as well.

We've spent an awful lot of time trying to unlock the problem of NRW's approach to planting trees at scale, which is important, but there's a great deal that we can do at the community level. I think one of the real challenges we have here is that this is all rather arid and abstract on a scientific level, and we need to make this real for people. One of the things that we've seen through the lockdowns is that people's relationship with their own doorstep nature has been quite profound. I myself have become suddenly interested in the trees where I live and the trees in my garden in a way that simply wasn't true before. We need to capitalise on that by making people realise that they have a role to play, and through a multitude of small actions, that can make a difference too.

Can I thank the Deputy Minister for the statement? Starting with the science, carbon oxidates to form carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and traps heat. We know this because Venus, which has mainly a carbon dioxide atmosphere, despite being much further away from the sun than Mercury, is substantially hotter. Whilst saying these few words, I've been expelling carbon dioxide into the atmosphere through the act of breathing. Does the Minister agree that reducing our carbon footprint by exporting industries that produce carbon dioxide will not help reduce global warming but will probably make it worse? 

Can I say how really pleased I am with what the Minister said on tree planting? I raised it yesterday in the business statement. If everybody in Wales with a garden planted one tree, we'd have 1 million trees planted in a year. We did have a scheme in the 1970s that worked. I represent the lower Swansea valley, which has gone from a moon-like landscape to being now very much tree lined and that shows what can be done.

I have two key questions. When will the Government change planning policy to ensure that all new houses are net zero? We don't want to build houses that have to be retrofitted in the near future. The second one is: will the Minister continue to support the tidal lagoon in Swansea? This is an opportunity to create green energy that will last forever.

Thank you for that, and particularly for the references to Venus and the moon. It's not often that they feature in our discussions on climate change. I completely agree, as I've just set out, on the role that tree planting on a family and community level can have. I'm very keen to understand what barriers might stand in the way and make some recommendations to the Senedd before the end of the summer term on how we can start to make further progress in that regard.

In terms of the tidal lagoon, Mike Hedges will know that the programme for government contains a commitment to a challenge fund. We are very keen about the impact and potential that marine renewables, in their broadest sense, can have, and lagoons are obviously an important part of that spectrum of technology. We need to do thousands of little things, but we also need to do some big game-changing things. The lagoon, the micro hydro, as well as individual tree planting, all have their part to play in responding to the science that's been spelled out to us today by the UK Climate Change Committee.

Minister, you and the Minister for Climate Change will have my absolute support in doing everything that is needed to take forward this agenda, both on climate change mitigation and adaptation as well, and also on the nature crisis and the biodiversity crisis we face as well. There'll be a time that will come for very detailed questions and very detailed scrutiny of how we achieve this and how we drive it forward. The complexity of some of the solutions can sometimes be completely overwhelming and sometimes you put your hands up in despair. So, I want to ask you the big question. Yesterday, I spoke at a biodiversity event arranged by Wales Environment Link, with cross-party support within it as well, and biodiversity and climate change, of course, are interlinked in this. One of the speakers there was Poppy Stowell-Evans, a youth climate change ambassador. What hope can we give to Poppy and to others that we are committed and that we will deliver the change that is needed, no matter how difficult, and we will do it in a way that will create better communities, fairer communities, more just communities, green jobs, better environments and so on? What hope can we give young people that we can actually deliver on that?

First of all, can I just pay a very sincere tribute to Huw Irranca-Davies for the role that he's played, both before he came to the Senedd, in Westminster as a Minister and as Chair of a select committee, and since he's come here? I worked very closely with him in the cross-party group on active travel in the last Senedd and I hope to continue to do so again. I think we've made real progress. That combination of challenge and support is very deftly deployed by him, and I look forward to continuing that relationship.

I'm optimistic about the way we tackle this challenge. Whether we deal with it or not is not a question; we must deal with it. It's an imperative; this is an existential crisis and threat to us all. So, there really is very little debate to be had about 'do we do it?', and I'm very pleased that some of the more absurd voices that were in this Chamber on this question are no longer here. So, at least, hopefully, we can all start from the starting point that the science is legitimate and this is a challenge that we need to engage with.

I'm very interested in doing this in a way that has additional benefits, because I think people will respond better—and the evidence suggests this is the case—if the measures that are required to respond to the scientific challenge of climate change also have other benefits that may be more immediate to their everyday lives; so, clean air, a better local environment, less traffic congestion—a whole range of things that we could mention—and warmer homes.

I think we should be highlighting the practical day-to-day benefits to make people's lives better, not just the doom and gloom if we don't do it. Clearly, that needs to be there for us, as policy makers, to focus our minds on the urgency of getting this done, but in communicating this to people I think we can all be optimistic that if we do this in the right way and in a just way, with proper urgency, we can unleash potential here that will make people's lives better. 

I just want to come back to what you said earlier about how the Government can't do it on its own and it's down to every organisation and every individual. I want to home in on something that Mike Hedges asked, which is around new-build housing, but, first of all, I just wanted to understand why we're delaying challenging social landlords to meet energy performance certificate rating A in their retrofitting of social housing, not starting until January next year. I had assumed that the announcement that was made in April 2021 about new buildings also applied to existing buildings. So, that would be a useful clarification.

On top of that, I'm also a bit frustrated that we still haven't amended Part L of the building regulations, which continues to allow private house builders to build homes that are simply not fit for purpose—that do not have solar panels on their south-facing roofs and that do not have ground-source heat pumps fitted, in new homes. There's an abysmal level of fitting of that, even in areas where there is no mains gas and, therefore, ground-source heat pumps must be the most economical thing we can be doing. You don't appear to want to mandate any change from private house builders until 2024-25, based on the statement that you put out around the response to the Climate Change Committee, so it'd be really useful to understand why we're not stepping up the pace on this, given that we have an emergency on our hands and we're not going fast enough. 

Thank you very much. Could I echo what I said about Huw Irranca-Davies about Jenny Rathbone as well, who's been a passionate advocate of this agenda? I very seriously appreciate her efforts and look forward to continuing her challenge.

She raised a series of questions about housing. As Julie James explained earlier, the carving up of this mammoth portfolio is a daily challenge. One of the things we have agreed is I will lead on particular areas; I will lead on transport, regeneration, energy and digital, and work broadly across the other areas—hence the tree planting, for example—and Julie will lead on the rest. So, housing remains with Julie, but I will nip and tuck as directed by my colleague.

But I would say, on the energy standards, I think one of the things I don't think has been said enough is the enormous progress that we have made through the Welsh housing quality standards over the last 18 years. And this is an example of an issue that we were told could not be done. We were told it was just too difficult to get 225,000 homes up to the energy efficiency standards of EPCD, and we have done it. Through £1.8 billion of investment, this has been an enormous achievement by the Welsh Labour Government over that time. And the new iteration—Welsh housing quality standards 2.0, niftily named—is starting in 2022. So, to directly answer the question of why we're waiting until the end of this year, that's because the new standards come into force from that time, which will accelerate social housing's journey towards net carbon zero. So, I think we genuinely should be proud of what we've achieved over the last 18 years with Welsh quality housing standards, and we should expect more of it in the next period, and I think we have reason to be optimistic about that.

Similarly, on part L, I understand that is coming in this year. And this is one of the challenges of this agenda. We know the science is urgent, there are a great deal of things that we'd like to do immediately. The process of getting them through the Government legislative, regulatory machine, working with partners, making sure it's designed properly, so that it works rather than goes off half-cocked, is slow and complex. And I said in my statement earlier, there are tensions here that we're going to have to manage through together, and this is one of the tensions. I can promise you that Julie James and I are as impatient as anybody else in trying to do this as quickly as we possibly can, but it's not as simple as we would like it to be.

Finally, on the example of the ground source heat pumps, I think that's a really excellent example of the new opportunities that this agenda brings. There are jobs to be created from installing ground source heat pumps. Now, currently, we do not have a trained workforce who can do this. So, that is something we're working very closely with Vaughan Gething on, to make sure that we create opportunities for people to upskill, to be able to take advantage of the huge economic opportunities that come from the necessary changes we need to make to respond to the climate crisis.

I'd like to state very clearly that, when it comes to the climate and biodiversity emergency, there is no place for party politics, and I am committed to work cross-party to secure and support your work. And I'm pleased to hear the Deputy Minister reference the need to take a data and science-led approach to the climate emergency. However, this is at odds with your refusal to commit to an independent inquiry into the floods, an inquiry that would give us the answers, because, time and time again, people still don't know what happened and why. People trust Welsh Government due to COVID, because of that openness in terms of data, and yet, they do not have the answers they need and deserve in terms of what happened in 2020. Therefore, we can throw money reactively at flood management, and until we actually acknowledge that things like the section 19 report will not give those answers, we have a whole array of reports, but we need a way of bringing all of that data together, to understand also the impact on mental health and well-being. And I would like to ask, you've referenced the national flood strategy, and in that it references a need for a national conversation, and the NRW report states the same. When will those difficult conversations take place and we take forward those conversations, but actually listen to communities, who at the moment do not trust this Welsh Government to protect them from flooding?

Quite right.

Thank you, Janet. I think that is a fair challenge. Clearly, as the science indicates, these are going to become more and more frequent occurrences, and the ability of all agencies and all parts of Government—local and central—to deal with them is going to be incredibly challenged. There are lessons for us to learn from the flooding in Pentre and in the Rhondda Cynon Taf area a couple of years ago and all across Wales. I think there's a pragmatic judgement to be made about where the finite resources and time we have are best placed. Is that through a formal independent inquiry, as she asks, which will not be quick, and will not be cheap, and will snarl up other progress, or are there more rapid lessons that we can learn and apply in real time, because these things could be upon us within the next year again? That is our instinct, is to do that. I can promise her that there will be no lack of appetite to have difficult conversations with any Government agency or partner, and we are beginning our dialogue as we speak. So, I can give an assurance on that. 

So, there's nothing to stop the Assembly committees, once they are convened, eventually, to do some work into this, which will be helpful to us. We are not against having enquiring minds finding better ways of doing it and learning lessons. Far from it. We do have, as a set of Ministers, a real challenge about the resource available to us and the set of challenges available to us over a vast number of areas, and I think we just need to be pragmatic about where we put our effort. But I would like to work closely with Heledd Fychan, on how we can look at the proposals in your manifesto, and how we can work together on some of them; I think there are some very interesting ideas there that we would be very happy to talk about. But I think we need to stop butting heads on what's happened with the flooding, and start working together to find solutions quickly. 

I think it's fair to say that most of us are familiar with the forest restoration and the emphasis on planting more trees, and I support that. There are many more maybe less known nature-based solutions like the restoration of peat land and seagrass habitats. Both of those have been severely degraded in recent years, but are equally important for reducing carbon emissions and increasing biodiversity. 

I've chosen these two areas particularly because those habitats were once very common in my constituency of mid and west Wales. Ninety per cent of seagrass meadows have been lost in the UK, with pollution and a range of boating activities thought to be the biggest culprits. Swansea University are currently highlighting an exciting project where they're trying to restore seagrass habitats in Dale Bay in Pembrokeshire. A seagrass meadow can store about half a tonne of carbon per hectare per year, and are a fantastic habitat for a whole range of marine species. 

I'd like to know, Minister, what assessment the Welsh Government have made of that project, and the feasibility that it offers to being rolled out across other suitable marine areas in Wales.

Restoration of peat land in Wales is such an important aspect in helping to tackle climate change and biodiversity loss. I do welcome Natural Resources Wales and the Welsh Government's national action programme, which has set targets to restore 600 to 800 hectares of peat land in identified areas across Wales between 2020 and 2025. But the use of peat in gardening really does concern me, and I'm keen to know what steps the Welsh Government are taking to encourage Welsh gardeners and horticulturalists to go peat-free. The writer and broadcaster, Monty Don, recently said that using peat in your garden is an act of eco-vandalism and I couldn't agree more. 

Thank you very much, Joyce Watson. I wasn't aware of the project that you refer to in Pembrokeshire; it sounds very interesting and I'd like to find out more about it, and to properly answer your question about what lessons can be learned from it. So, if you're willing, I will go away, find out more and write to you about that. 

I completely agree, as I set out earlier, that the potential of natural carbon stores is something that we need to be properly harnessing. As I mentioned, NRW are currently mapping areas of marine and coastal habitats, including those that store and sequester blue carbon to understand their potential and the opportunities for restoration of these important habitats, and that includes seagrass. 

And, also, in terms of peat land restoration, I also agree with the points she made there. We have funded a five-year peat land action programme to restore peat land, with a budget of £1 million a year. The project is funded from 2020 to 2025, and aims to restore 600 to 800 hectares of peat per annum, and there will be a full review of that programme for us to learn what's gone well and how we become more ambitious with it, and I would be very pleased to work with her on both those areas to see what even more we can do. 

Thank you, Deputy Minister. That concludes that item. We will now take a short break in order to allow for changeovers in the Chamber.

Plenary was suspended at 14:40.

The Senedd reconvened at 14:49, with the Llywydd in the Chair.