Drakeford outlines his net-zero future vision
THE First Minister has said everyone will have to live differently in the future, in order to tackle climate change.
Speaking ahead of attending the Cop26 summit in Glasgow and the Welsh Government publishing its Net Zero plan on October 28 – which will cover the period to 2050 – Mark Drakeford said everyone will have to change the way they live.
He was speaking after a visit to the Centre for Alternative Technology in Machynlleth.
He said his government’s hope to get to net zero by 2050 “challenges us all” and will change everything from how people heat their homes to travel and work.
This week, the Welsh Government said it was “frustrated” that the UK Government had released details, without any consultation, of its plans to offer grants for heat pumps.
Asked if the mixed messaging would deter people from getting on board, the First Minister said: “We were told in June by the UK minister in charge of their plan that we would see a draft of it in July, so that that would help us to shape our plan because we’ve had to create our plan in the dark because we’ve never seen the UK Government’s plan until the day it was published. “Despite the fact that we are very determined to use all the powers we have and all the opportunities we have, we don’t have all the levers here in Wales. Lots of the levers are in the hands of the UK Government and we need to work together on this agenda.
“I met the Prime Minister on Monday. The First Ministers of Scotland, Northern Ireland were there as well and I made that point exactly to him.
“Climate change is something we will only address if we have genuine cross-government co-operation, and we are very keen to play our part in that. But we can only do it if the UK Government is an equally willing partner.”
“It’s a challenging plan, because getting to net zero by 2050 challenges us all. Every one of us is going to have to do things differently in the future, in the way we heat our homes, in the way we travel about, the way we go about our working lives.
“In the next 10 years we have to make as much progress as we have made in the last 30 years if we are going to be on track to do what the
Paris Climate Accord said we needed to do. And that is to keep the rise in global temperatures below 1.5°C.
“Wales has some fantastic opportunities in all of this. The 20,000 new homes for social rent that we will build in this Senedd term will be entirely carbon-neutral...
“Our journey in terms of transport has started already. Our roads review is clear that when there are transport challenges in future, we will not be reaching for a roads-based solution as the first thing that we will do.”
“In the energy field there are so many opportunities for Wales. Placed where we are geographically on the western edge of the United Kingdom, we get the prevailing winds coming over Wales. There is more we can and must do in terms of renewable energy and floating wind and onshore wind.
“We’re surrounded by sea on three of the four sides in Wales, and the marine energy possibilities for the future are ones that we are investing in today because we will need them here in Wales, but we will be able to develop the technologies in Wales that the whole of the world will use in the future.
“If we know nothing else, we know that fossil fuels are a finite resource. The world is going to run out and to keep the lights on, and the heating going and everything else we need to do, we’re going to have to find alternative sources of energy and that’s the contribution that the Wales can make to the world.”
Asked how individuals will be able to afford the ambitious plans his government is laying out, he said people would not be footing the bill alone.
“As challenging as this is, and it is genuinely challenging, it is a challenge we can overcome together.
“I think there is a real danger, that sometimes the way these things are talked about is that instead of encouraging and inspiring people to play their part, people draw the conclusion that it’s so difficult that there’s nothing that they can do. I think there is a real leadership challenge for people in political life to get the message over to people that provided we all do the small things that we can do in our own lives, collectively that will add up to make a difference.”
Pushed on the cost of the measures that are being brought forward, the First Minister said: “It will be a tripartite system. In the end there will be help from the UK Government there will be help from the Welsh Government, and they will be things that we will have to do for ourselves as well.”