Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Climate Change – in the Senedd at 1:57 pm on 6 October 2021.
Thank you, Minister. Obviously, making commitments of this nature, they're symbolic, and so many of these principles that underpin the commitments are fundamentally important, so I won't make any apology for calling on you to make another commitment in my final question, in fact, which is about the declaration of the nature emergency that we as a Senedd made in June, which we were all so pleased to have seen as another milestone. That was a vital element of this motion that was carried, which called on the Welsh Government to introduce legally binding requirements to reverse biodiversity loss through statutory targets. I know again that I'm asking you about targets and so on, but these things—as I'm sure you'll agree—are hugely important in driving how these policies are put into place.
A Bill on environmental governance and principles would offer the ideal vehicle to do this, but, Minister, in your recent correspondence with the climate change committee when you were referring to the legislative consent memorandum on the UK Environment Bill, you declined to commit to taking this vital opportunity. You said that we have to wait for the conclusion of COP15 in May 2022 before taking that decision. Now I understand, of course, why in many ways you would wish to see the outcome of that, but waiting might not be a luxury that we can afford. Wales is among the most nature-depleted countries in the world. Surely we could lead the way by setting high ambitions ahead of COP15, forge ahead with vital primary legislation to set headlines, so that we can, yes, halt and start to reverse biodiversity loss in Wales by 2030, and achieve recovery by 2050. So, Minister, the final commitment that I will call on you to make is: will you commit to using the environmental principles and governance Bill to introduce a legally binding requirement to reverse biodiversity loss through statutory targets?