1. What impact does the Welsh Government anticipate COP26 will have on Wales reaching net zero? OQ57192

I thank John Griffiths for that question, Llywydd. COP26 will provide opportunities for Wales to innovate, collaborate and develop international partnerships to help us achieve our net-zero by 2050 ambition. We will increase our exports of green skills and services and attract investment into Wales in pursuit of a just transition to net zero.

First Minister, I was fortunate to attend COP26 last week, and I was pleased to see there the importance of integrated public transport being highlighted in the global effort to combat climate change. And, of course, locally in south-east Wales we have the Burns commission recommendations, many of which point to that need for more integrated public transport as the way forward for our area. I just wonder, when you reflect on COP26 and the Burns commission, and how they relate to each other, what you would see as the way forward for those recommendations from Burns, and particularly perhaps initial measures over the next year or so if we are to play our part in south-east Wales in making the necessary progress on integrated transport, which is an important part of the overall effort to combat climate change.

Also, given that taxis are an important part of the mix and, indeed, significant for air quality, when can we expect to see taxi fleets across Wales converted to electric vehicles?

Llywydd, I thank John Griffiths for that, and thank him for being at COP to represent his own committee and to make sure that, at the parliamentary level, Wales was represented and able to hold conversations, I know, with parliamentary representatives from other parts of the United Kingdom and around the world.

Well, the Burns committee report, Llywydd, seems to me entirely consistent with the COP26 message, that we have to change the way in which we travel, that we have to find new and better ways to make sure that we emphasise public transport routes to transport rather than a reliance on the car. Now, the 58 recommendations of the Burns review are being taken forward by the unit that has been established by Transport for Wales, and we expect shortly its first annual report from the two independent people who've been appointed to oversee the work of that unit. It will focus on immediate actions that can be taken—improving active travel routes to rail stations, for example, making sure that there are innovative new cycle ways to allow people to move by cycle as well as by public transport, and it will continue its work to place more detail around the recommendations of the review that rely on the reopening of the other line available from south Wales across the border. And, in that way, we continue to look forward to the results of the UK Government's connectivity review. It will be a real test of the UK Government and its willingness to invest in things for which it has responsibility and which make such a direct difference here in Wales. 

As to taxis, Llywydd, the Welsh Government has an ambition that all taxis and private-hire vehicles will be zero emission by tailpipe by 2028. We are assisting in that transition with funding as well as policy measures, and I know John Griffiths will have seen that, last week, on 10 November, we launched a 'try before you buy' pilot. It's a scheme that allows taxi drivers and owners in the Cardiff capital region, in Denbighshire, and in Pembrokeshire to try out a fully electric wheelchair-compliant vehicle free of charge for 30 days in order to advertise the advantages of the electric vehicles to which John Griffiths drew attention.

First Minister, we all want Wales to achieve net zero as soon as possible, and I welcome some of the schemes that you've just outlined. But whilst the Welsh Government have been big on talk, declaring a climate emergency here in 2019, policies and change have been slow and cumbersome, key targets have been missed or changed, and successive budgets have been far from green. The state of nature report 2020 has highlighted that Wales has not met any of its four aims for the sustainable management of natural resources approach, and the latest electric vehicle plan is both overdue and lacks the detail that the people of Wales need. First Minister, when will you invest the money needed to hit the targets that your own Government has set itself?

Llywydd, I simply don't recognise the dismal picture the Member paints; a little more cheerfulness about Wales and our prospects for the future would not go amiss. This Government has taken radical action, usually opposed, of course, by her Members; whenever there is change, Members of the Conservative Party are on their feet to oppose it, and they're in that mode where climate change comes along. Let's hear another series of speeches in favour of a major road around Newport and see what good that will do for climate change. [Interruption.] That's exactly what I mean. The question that I'm asked comes from a party whose track record is always to oppose the necessary actions that are required, whether that's in transport, whether that's in the way that we will need to change our diets in the future—we'll hear another speech in a minute in favour of reactionary policies in the agriculture field. You name it, they oppose it, we do it.