2. How is the Welsh Government raising awareness of the impact of climate change in local communities? OQ57498

Diolch, Paul. The Welsh Government is fully committed to addressing the causes and impacts of climate change. We have raised awareness as part of our recent COP Cymru and Wales Climate Week events, and we continue to work closely with local authorities to support communities to understand and to address the climate emergency.

Thank you for that response, Minister. You may be aware of the work of the CHERISH project, which consists of a team of archaeologists, geographers and geologists who study the effects of climate change on coastal and maritime heritage in Wales, and indeed in Ireland. The project is currently running an exhibition at Oriel y Parc in St David's in my constituency, looking at the effects of climate change in the local area, between now and the end of February. I'm sure you'll agree with me that this kind of activity is so important in terms of explaining the impact of climate change on our local areas. And so, can you tell me what the Welsh Government is doing to support and raise awareness of specific projects like this across Wales?

Diolch, Paul. I am aware of the exhibition you have because I am a proud member of the mailing list for Oriel y Parc there—a place I often visit on my holidays—so I was aware of it. I'm actually hoping to go down and see the exhibition shortly. Yes, of course, we're very keen to assist with all such exhibitions and to publicising them—and very happy to join with you in publicising that one—across Wales, as we work with community groups in a number of ways, both highlighting events from around the world that can be brought back here to Wales, and indeed, actually, in assisting Welsh scientists and community groups to go abroad with theirs, virtually at the moment of course, but to go abroad with their very good ideas. And one of the things that I was particularly pleased with with COP Cymru and Wales Climate Week was the number of contributors we had from around the world as a result of our membership of the Under2 alliance, with what are called sub-national states. So, we had people contributing to that from around the world, and indeed we were able to showcase Wales's community efforts, such as the one you've just mentioned, in that as well. So, very happy to join with you in both commending it and publicising it.

Good afternoon, Minister. I just wanted to talk about heating in domestic homes. We know that homes are responsible for 27 per cent of all energy consumed and 9 per cent of all emissions in Wales. And with just 10 per cent of homes being built in the last 20 years, our housing stock is amongst the oldest and least efficient in Europe. Just focusing on homes in rural areas, and in mid and west Wales, and those that are heated from oil, we know that more than 33 per cent of homes in Ceredigion are reliant on oil to heat their homes. The Office for National Statistics said the county faces the highest increase in fuel bills of any area in mainland United Kingdom in the past year—£863 on average. Without price regulation, as we know, and without a greener alternative, those reliant on oil are facing the sharp end of this cost-of-living energy crisis. I just wondered if you could outline what measures have been considered to support those homes reliant on oil now, and to support those households and businesses to look at transitioning to greener energy in the longer term? Diolch.

Diolch, Jane. We absolutely are aware of the real cost-of-living crisis, particularly for people on off-grid oil, as you say. Just to say, we are currently consulting on the next iteration of the Warm Homes programme—so, to encourage everyone to respond to that. That's in order to support households to transition to both lower carbon heating, but also actually to assist with their domestic household bills as well. We obviously recognise the problem that you've just outlined so ably, and the difficulty the energy price increases have caused for households who are dependent on oil in particular. It is acknowledged in our cold weather resilience plan, which includes actions to better support households and work with oil suppliers to improve cold weather resilience for low-income households.

Just to emphasise, rural households are included within the scope of the assistance fund to support eligible off-grid homes with the cost of fuel and boiler repairs. It's often something that people don't realise—that they're eligible to apply for the discretionary assistance fund grant. We also are working closely with our single advice fund services, so that we are making sure that more vulnerable people get the advice and support they need to apply for the support that is available. And also then, on the longer term point, we're obviously rolling out the optimised retrofit programme, because we absolutely recognise that we've got some of the oldest housing stock in Europe, and that one-size-fits-all retrofit certainly does not work. And the whole purpose, as you've heard me saying before, of the optimised retrofit is to experiment with what will work, to bring those houses up to both the insulation and the domestic heating standards that we expect, to tackle both the climate emergency and the fuel poverty agenda that comes with living in a draughty and inefficient home.