The Climate and Nature Emergency

Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Climate Change – in the Senedd at 1:59 pm on 18 May 2022.

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Photo of Julie James Julie James Labour 1:59, 18 May 2022

It's a very good point, isn't it, because we all recognise the challenge of balancing the day-to-day daily grind, if you want to put it like that, with a focus on critical and strategic work that's needed to respond to the climate and nature emergencies. I think I said yesterday in one of my statements that my colleague Rebecca Evans and I will be working with the new leadership teams in local government to work with the newly formed cabinets, the individual cabinet members, to make sure that there is no slacking off of the agenda. Prior to the local government elections, we had really good buy-in across all local authorities on this piece, and I don't anticipate any different result from the outcome now. We had some really interesting conversations with leaders who were leaders before the election, and continue to be leaders now, about structuring their cabinet in a way that has resource efficiency and climate emergency as a very serious part of their Cabinet portfolio work, and I hope to see at least some of those portfolio positions coming through. It's all about making sure that it stays at that strategic leadership level and doesn't slide down the organisation and lose focus.

So, I'm really clear that the political will is there. We'll do some central co-ordination as we always do with the WLGA and through the partnership council to keep this, and it's a standing item on the partnership council agenda, and continues to be. And we've allocated £1.49 million for WLGA to deliver the support programme to help authorities do a once-for-Wales approach with a lot of this. Can I just say, while I'm at it, that the work you've been doing on the verges and No Mow May and so on has been really helpful? I had a really interesting meeting yesterday in Torfaen with a No Mow May piece of amenity ground funded by a Local Places for Nature that's been building on some of the work you've done, which we're hoping to build on very much as we go forward.