Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:13 pm on 15 March 2022.
Well, as we've said, we've increased the level of funding for NRW, and how it is spent in detail is a matter for them and a matter for dialogue with us. I'm not able to say any more than that today, but clearly it is a key question, and I acknowledge that. I absolutely recognise her point about the trauma and distress caused by flooding. I saw some of it myself in Pontypridd two years ago now, and I met with many of the people who were affected and could see the real upset that it had caused there, and the stress. And we want to avoid that. We know from the scientists that this is going to become a more regular occurrence. We are going to have wilder and wetter winters, we are having greater rainfall, and that is a consequence of the climate emissions, the carbon emissions that have already been emitted into the atmosphere. That's baked in, and we have to adapt our infrastructure and our systems to deal with that, and people in areas of risk have to learn to live with the risk and manage the risk. We can't magic it away. But equally important is that we stop it getting any worse, and our commitment to net zero needs to be redoubled and reminders given to people, because there are voices during this crisis who are simply saying that we need to set aside many of the things we've committed to doing around renewable energy or, indeed, around tree planting. They're simply saying we should respond to the crisis in a short-termist way, a knee-jerk way, to go back to doing the things we've done. There are certainly voices on the right calling for us to embrace fracking, and I think it's really important that we remember we're talking about, today, the impact of climate change. That's not going to go away, it's going to get worse, and we must not lose our nerve in a very difficult situation and remember we are facing multiple crises, and the climate crisis also has to be dealt with.