I'd like to thank Rhun ap Iorwerth for bringing this Member's legislative proposal to the Chamber today. I think this is an opportunity to discuss an issue that many aren't aware exists in this ever-expanding digitised world. When we think about reducing our carbon footprint, there is often an assumption that going online acts as a sustainable alternative to combat our environmental impact, for example, by working from home instead of driving your car to work, or by going paperless to save trees, while storing all the information and data in the cloud. When we send an e-mail, we don't necessarily think about how that e-mail is being stored and what impact that storage is having on the environment.

But the reality is that data centres, which is what I'm going to focus on today, are physical buildings that require mass amounts of energy to store data. They are in use 24/7 and require a constant temperature of 12 degrees Celsius so that they do not destroy any data that is stored in them. They also require more energy and water to prevent the deterioration of servers, which is why research shows that data centres use nearly 3 per cent of the world's electricity consumption and account for 2 per cent of total greenhouse gas emissions. This is enough energy to power entire countries and emissions comparable to the entire global airline industry.

So, there is no doubt that this is creating an impact on our carbon footprint. We cannot have a situation where we replace one polluter with another, and, as Janet Finch-Saunders said, it's not all bad, we need this, absolutely, but we must be honest about the realities of data centres and put infrastructure in place that deals with sustainable methods such as green data centres before it is too late, and we heard some other suggestions from Rhun just now.

Companies such as Microsoft, Switch and other data process and storage companies must work to seek green innovations to maximise energy efficiency. There are good examples of this from reducing cooling with AI to using small numbers of servers when there is low traffic of data. I would also argue that any new data centres in Wales should not be built on greenfield sites.

In November 2021, I wrote to Welsh Government to ask them for their assessment of the environmental impacts of data centres. At the time, the Welsh Government stated that it had not taken an assessment and would continue to engage with other nations and their findings as more evidence emerged. I hope that, with the work going into the Wales data nation accelerator, where public services may rely on this collection and storage of data, the Welsh Government considers this growing evidence and that we do not generate unnecessary negative impacts on our environment. So, therefore, as a fellow chair of the cross-party group on digital rights and democracy, I will be supporting your Member's legislative proposal this afternoon, Rhun. Diolch.