03/28/2024

Wales News Online

Local & National News for Wales

Gower AM supports Welsh government’s decision to declare a climate emergency

GOWER Assembly Member, Rebecca Evans AM, is supporting the Welsh Labour Government’s decision to declare a climate emergency in Wales.

The declaration sends a clear signal that the Welsh Government will not allow the process of leaving the EU to detract from the challenge of climate change, which threatens our health, economy, infrastructure and our natural environment.

The announcement draws attention to the magnitude and significance of the latest evidence from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and highlights the recent climate protests across the UK.

The latest advice on from the Welsh Government’s statutory advisory body the UK Committee on Climate Change on how meeting the goals in the Paris Agreement might affect Wales’ long-term climate change legislative targets is due at the end of the week.

Rebecca Evans AM said: “Tackling climate change is the defining issue of this generation and the Welsh Government is right to declare a climate emergency.

“All governments have a moral responsibility to act. Tackling climate change is not an issue which can be left to individuals or to the free market. It requires collective action and the Welsh Government has a central role in making that collective action possible.

“I hope this decision to declare a climate emergency inspires others to take action both here in Wales and around the world.”

The Welsh Government has committed to achieving a carbon neutral public sector by 2030 and to coordinating action to help other areas of the economy to make a decisive shift away from fossil fuels, involving academia, industry and the third sector. Last month, it published Prosperity for All: A Low Carbon Wales, which sets out 100 policies and proposals to meet the 2020 carbon emissions targets.

The plan for 2021-26 is already being prepared and will go further and faster. Welsh Government is also currently reviewing farmer support post Brexit with public goods element and updating its Nature Recovery Action Plan to drive urgent action to increase the resilience of our ecosystems in order to reverse the decline in habitats and species.

The Welsh Government has led the way by being one of the first countries in the world to make sustainable development a constitutional duty, with the ground-breaking Future Generations Act.

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