Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:46 pm on 15 November 2022.
Diolch, Delyth. In terms of the increased rainfall—. Well, it's not just the increased rainfall, actually. One of the biggest issues we have is hot, dry summers followed by extreme rainfall events. We still are in drought in most of Wales. We still haven't got our reservoirs up to where they should be, despite the rain that we've been having recently, because it's intermittent. A lot of it falls suddenly and then it's intermittent. You could say today was a rainy day, but large parts of today didn't have rain in them. So, we are watching climate change happen. And that's following a hot, dry summer where the land dried right out. So, instead of absorbing that water, it runs off, and that's a real problem. It's a real problem for us to make sure that we put resilient systems in place that allow better absorption of water when it finally does come.
One of the reasons why we are really emphasising at the moment that what you do in your own home really matters is because if that water can absorb into the gardens—even the small front gardens that people have in urban areas—it makes a huge difference to the amount of water that runs off. And if I can just digress for one moment, please don't put AstroTurf down. Have a little read of what's in AstroTurf and what happens to children who play on it, and the chemical compounds that get into them afterwards. Amongst the very many things I hope from our plastics legislation, Llywydd, once we eventually pass it, is that we can look very soon at AstroTurf, because it is horrendous. What people are looking for is a lovely green lawn. It's not that hard to grow a green lawn, actually. So, we're really working hard with our schoolchildren as part of our new curriculum. These are the well-informed citizens of the world that we want, who understand the effect of their own actions on the planet that they live on.
The other thing we will be doing, of course, is banning a whole range of single-use plastics, so then they won't be able to be flushed down the loo—the classic cotton bud and stirrers and all sorts of other things that people manage to flush down the loo. And then, I go back to what I've often discussed in this Chamber as well, which I will be bringing up with the UK Government once again, which is labelling. I do think that we have real problems with labelling. Some things are labelled as if they're biodegradable or flushable, like flushable wet wipes. There is no such thing as a flushable wet wipe. Talking to the UK Government about what can be done to label it to empower people to make the right choices where they want to is really, really important. So, we will be doing that as well.
In terms of the environmental body, obviously, we've discussed this many times. I'm absolutely determined to put an environmental body in place with the biodiversity targets to implement. We're very closely following what's happening in Scotland. We will learn the lessons from that, and so when we do it, we will have the benefit of having learnt those lessons. I'm very happy to say once again that we will do that. We're going, I hope, to COP15 in Canada, where we will hope to play a big role in what happens about the 30x30 targets, and how they might be implemented in what are called sub-national states for this purpose—sub-UN states. And the Under2 Coalition will be looking at that as well, so we will be able to help each other with that.
Just on that, we will also be looking to implement, as I said in my statement, a whole range of natural water solutions. We have some in action at the moment. I don't know if Mike Hedges is in the Chamber—he isn't. In Mike Hedges's constituency—you may have heard me mention it—