The Climate and Nature Crisis

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:08 pm on 5 October 2021.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 2:08, 5 October 2021

Llywydd, I agree with this point that the Member raised, that we must all find ways of helping those people who do feel overwhelmed by the challenge of climate change to find things that they can do that make a difference, because that is what gives people hope when they feel hopeless, feeling that there is something that they can do that, when you add it up with everything else that others are doing, genuinely can make an impact.

We've got good reason for doing that here in Wales. We will know that when the Senedd came into being, Wales had some of the lowest recycling rates around the world. Today, we have the third-best rates around the world. When I'm talking to young people, I say to them, 'There is an example of the way a difference can be made. You shouldn't feel hopeless about the future. It's right to feel concerned, but if we do the right things and if we act together, then we can make a difference.'

Now, when we have our own climate week, Wales Climate Week, in November, we will have a series of activities that young people in particular will be able to take part in. It's all focused on those things that we need to do today, in the way that the leader of opposition, the spokesperson for the opposition—pardon me—today led off with in his questions: those things we need to do in transport, in residential buildings, in the circular economy, in the way that we deal with environmental risks. And if we do it in that way, saying to our young people that provided we do the right things and provided we do them together then there is proper hope for the future, then I think we can help to overcome some of the feelings that the Member referred to.