Oral - Climate Change Strategy Programme of Action and meeting of the Climate Change Commission

On 25 June, I launched our consultation on the 'Climate change strategy—Programme of action consultation’ at the National Botanic Garden in Carmarthenshire. Climate change is a huge challenge, but we have an opportunity in Wales to lead the way, demonstrating how we can put the vision in 'One Wales: One Planet’ into practice and move decisively towards only using our fair share of the Earth’s resources in a way that promotes a fairer and more just society.

The programme of action consultation provides detailed proposals for turning our vision of a low carbon, sustainable Wales into reality. The proposals represent a total investment of around £300 million over the next four financial years, and demonstrate how seriously we are taking our commitment to achieve a 3 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions every year by 2011.

The consultation sets out proposals for new policies and programmes that will help us to achieve emissions reduction in key sectors and develop an adaptation framework for Wales. Key proposed actions include: funding to support community energy generation and microgeneration in homes; new climate change development officers for Welsh communities; a new pilot scheme to lower the carbon footprint of cities; the roll-out of the Sustainable Travel Towns initiative; environmental and sustainability advice and support for businesses through our Flexible Support for Business service; building skills and research and development for a low-carbon economy, which will be done through partnership working, our employment strategy, 'Skills That Work for Wales’, and our forthcoming green jobs strategy; and the creation of a climate change charter for organisations.

These new proposals build on the action that the Assembly Government and the UK and EU are already undertaking. Responding to the challenge of climate change and achieving our ambitious objectives in this area will require concerted and cross-cutting efforts, not just by all departments of the Assembly Government but by people, communities and organisations in all sectors across Wales. The Assembly Government is determined to provide clear leadership on tackling climate change as a key component of putting our new sustainable development scheme, 'One Wales: One Planet’, into practice. Our leadership needs to provide a framework that encourages and empowers everyone across Wales to play their role in tackling climate change.

Many people are already taking action and making a difference. For example, the third sector has a critical role to play in engaging with individuals and local communities. Local authorities play a central role by providing local leadership and embedding action on climate change in the services that they deliver. The business sector has opportunities to cut costs, reduce emissions and develop more green jobs through the transition to a low-carbon economy. The consultation process will help us to identify how we can help people to do more.

I am extremely grateful to the Climate Change Commission for Wales for its important contribution in developing the consultation document and for its continued support and constructive challenge in taking forward this ambitious agenda in Wales. I am also pleased that the UK Committee on Climate Change will be reviewing its programme of action and advising us on whether there is more that we could do to reach the abatement potential that it has identified. I believe that our programme of action provides a thorough examination of the activities that the Assembly Government can take immediately to reduce Wales’s emissions, and I look forward to seeing the consultation responses and to building those into a robust climate change strategy for Wales by the end of the year.

At the Climate Change Commission for Wales meeting, which followed the launch, I provided an update on other Assembly Government activity in addition to the launch of the programme of action consultation. The national energy efficiency and savings plan consultation has recently closed and the consultation analysis is under way. A campaign to reduce the number of carrier bags used has been launched and a consultation on plans to charge for single-use carrier bags was launched at a major local environment quality summit on Monday, 29 June. We are holding a number of consultation events on the flood and water management Bill. The Dyfi valley has just been named as a UNESCO biosphere, which is currently the only biosphere in Wales and the second in the UK. There has been a number of exciting developments in training and research and a demonstration of low-carbon technologies, and a major conference for young people, Countdown to Copenhagen, was held on 1 July.

The commission members updated their colleagues on the action under way in their organisations or sectors. Cerith Jones, one of Wales’s climate change champions, gave an update on the activity that he had been undertaking, and gave a powerful presentation on the action that he wanted to see taken in Wales to tackle climate change. There was a discussion on the forward work programme for the commission, including the creation of task and finish groups. The commission prioritised the establishment of groups to look at business and transport, similar to the existing groups that have been looking at agriculture, land use and the built environment.

The commission also received a summary of the new UK Climate Projections 2009, which were published shortly before the meeting. The projections provide a stark indication of how the Welsh climate is likely to change as a result of greenhouse gas emissions, and will be a useful tool for ensuring that we adapt to the impacts of climate change. The commission discussed its involvement in the consultation on the programme of action. We will be holding a series of sectoral and general consultation events to ensure that we engage as wide a cross-section of Welsh society as possible. The commission will play a key part in those events.

The commission also discussed the development of a project to look at the policies that would be required to achieve annual emissions reductions that were greater than 3 per cent. That project will be important in ensuring that the actions that we take now do not lock us out of steeper emissions reduction pathways in the future.