4. What assessment has the Welsh Government made of local and community involvement in combating the climate emergency? OQ57343

I believe there's a stronger sense then ever before of the urgency of the climate emergency. The practical ways in which local action and community involvement can make a difference are vividly illustrated in 'Working Together to Reach Net Zero', the companion document to our net-zero Wales plan.

Diolch, Brif Weinidog. It’s really encouraging to see people and organisations with plans and initiatives to both lower their own carbon footprint, but, more importantly, lower others' as well. Two such organisations in my constituency are RE:MAKE Newport, who have opened the first permanent repair cafe in Wales, with the support of many volunteers in the community, and the award-winning Sero Zero Waste, based in the grounds of Tredegar House, who sell refillable and sustainable products. These are almost universally accepted as good initiatives, but setting up organisations can be a struggle, and maintaining them long term quite often requires support. How is the Welsh Government helping organisations such as these to both establish and thrive long term, and how can we encourage more of them to start up in Wales?

I thank Jayne Bryant for that and for both of the two practical examples that she mentioned. I said that Jack Sargeant had taken me to see the impact of bank closures in Buckley; it was the Member for Newport West who took me to see Sero Zero Waste, the community shop at Tredegar House, and the two fantastic young women who had taken the risk of setting it all up and who have made such a success of it.

As far as RE:MAKE Newport is concerned, then the Member will know, I'm sure, that it is funded by the Welsh Government's landfill disposals tax communities scheme, a scheme designed particularly here in Wales when that piece of fiscal responsibility was transferred to us and endorsed as the legislation went through the Senedd. Repair cafes are a phenomenon of Wales—we have over 60 of them already—but something that I think RE:MAKE Newport offers is a step further again. Because, in a way that I'm familiar with from some other examples, you can take in household items that need to be repaired, and if you don't need them yourself, you are able to contribute them to a lending library where people who may not have easy access to quickly repaired items can go and borrow them for their own use.

We look around the Chamber here and we generally think how lucky all of us are that, if something small goes wrong at home—if the kettle breaks down, if the toaster needs repairing—we don't have to think about where we're going to find the money to be able to replace that item. But we know in Wales there is an enormous percentage of households who have no savings at all to fall back on and where even minor domestic difficulties loom very large over that household's ability to be able to manage through the week ahead. Those lending libraries of repaired items are a real lifeline in those communities, and it's great to see RE:MAKE Newport being part of that latest step in that development.

First Minister, just this weekend, towns and communities across north Wales, and probably the whole of Wales, tried to steel themselves against yet another torrid onslaught of very stormy weather. My local authority, Conwy County Borough Council, took several pre-emptive measures by closing all available floodgates, but we've seen really extensive damage to the promenade at Llanfairfechan. It stretches right through to West Shore, and there are implications now for the railway line that runs along that. It's so bad that even recent works after one of the previous storms have been washed away now in the sea. To me, such incidents as this prove the finding of the third UK climate change risk assessment, that more action is needed from all Governments to address the risk of climate change impacts, but especially more frequent flooding and coastal erosion causing damage to infrastructure. So, First Minister, what proactive steps is the Welsh Government taking to engage with our communities, and in particular our local authorities who bear the brunt of this, and Natural Resources Wales, to identify at-risk infrastructure points to ensure that storm-resilient precautions are introduced? And more so, what steps can you take now as a Welsh Government, First Minister, to make sure that there is a contingency fund in place to support our local authorities in the aftermath of such recurring storms? Because I think these now are going to become more frequent than they have been in the past. Thank you. Diolch.

I thank Janet Finch-Saunders for that really important point. There's no doubt, Llywydd, that climate change is already happening in Wales. Intense weather events and the frequency of them during the winter are going to be part of our lives much more than they were in the past. We've seen it already in communities here in south Wales. I made a visit with the then leader of Conwy council to a community that had been very badly affected by floods a year ago. I pay tribute to the work of local authorities, emergency services and, indeed, NRW workers who've been out this last weekend, and are out again today, in the high winds and the rain that we're seeing, working hard to try and protect communities from the impact of these extreme weather events. We will invest a record amount again this term, Llywydd, in flood and coastal defences right across Wales. Where emergencies hit, there are separate arrangements, of course, akin to the old Bellwin formula as it used to be known, that help local authorities where they have to pick up the immediate costs, as I remember Ceredigion County Council had when Aberystwyth front was badly damaged in high winds and sea swells. That is going to become a more permanent feature of the way things happen in Wales while we deal with the impact of climate change, and making sure that we have the arrangements fit to meet those circumstances is an important point that the Member's made this afternoon.