In a nutshell we could say that the Autumn Statement was: more foodbanks, a free zimmer with every pension, promotion of pollution, and keep spending on Trident.

There was nothing to help those caught in the poverty trap. The trickle down solution has not worked, the underemployed remain stuck in the loophole of austerity with rising personal debt and increasing food and fuel prices.

The Chancellor could have done so much more, like giving a boost to the real economy by creating jobs for the future in clean energies and zero carbon building. The promotion of pollution through yet more tax breaks for his friends and family in the fossil fuel companies is no joke either. Fracking for gas is just another fossil fuel industry sucking money out of the sectors trying to provide us with clean and secure energy. The Chancellor callously whipped the carpet from under the feet of all those fledgling organisations working to expand the renewables sector in wind, tide and solar energy.

What we needed was a clear and convincing signal for investment in the renewables sector. What we got was the opposite – more tax breaks for friends and family – his. Under this government’s stewardship the polluter gets paid, and handsomely.

Upping the pension age was not unexpected because on the whole we are getting older and healthier. Students will need to work longer to pay off their debt, and young people certainly won’t be in a hurry to rush to the workplace knowing they will be confined to it for 50 years or more. The brave new world of increasing leisure time and work-life balance remains firmly in the grip of the few who can afford it. At the last count that was roughly 4% of the population. Opportunities for self-advancement not born from economic necessity just flew further out of the window. How different it could all be with a Citizens Income where we could all afford to choose the work which suited us, could afford to bring up our own children if we chose, could afford to live free from the stigma of benefits and food banks whilst technically in full time work.

The Chancellor’s statement was not a plan for the future, it was a last ditch gasp to hang on to the tired, dirty past.

News today that the contentious Cardiff Incinerator, built by the multinational company Viridor, has been officially signed off by Cardiff Council on behalf of the five local authorities of Monmouth, Newport, Vale of Glamorgan, Caerphilly and Cardiff was greeted with dismay by all green campaigners and the majority of local residents.

Pippa Bartolotti, Wales Green Party Leader said “This decision is wrong on every count, from the air pollution which will damage health prospects for thousands, to the fact that perfectly saleable recyclable materials will go up in smoke. The world will soon be reaching a crisis of raw materials, and even our own Environment Bill White paper seeks to ensure no recyclates are incinerated, Wales has perversly decided to burn. “The people of Wales will be paying a high price for this incinerator in terms our future health and our wallets. Recycling rates are going up, and overall waste is going down. When the contracted amount of waste does not arrive at the incinerator door, taxpayers will have to make good the shortfall in hard cash. It’s a lose, lose situation and yet another example of profits being sucked out of our local economies by large multinational organisations with no thought for locals having to breathe in dioxins and other harmful substances.” The incinerator at Splott was built speculatively by Viridor, yet the Wales government will be paying £1.1 billion over 25 years to the company. There is no district heating network in place, therefore all of the generated heat will be wasted.

The Wales Green Leader added, “A £100m subsidy from WG together with £300m from the five Local authorities is a very high price for 40 jobs. Wales could have paid a fraction of the cost for an MBT (Mechanical, Biological Treatment) plant such as the one being successfully used for Bristol and surrounding counties, which maximises recycling and does not damage health.”

Monmouthshire achieved 68% recycling in the 2nd quarter Jul-Sep 2013 and may therefore start the project below the agreed guaranteed minimum tonnages

Viridor did not win a competitive tender. The other shortlisted companies pulled out of the scheme.

Other, more environmentally sustainable schemes were not included in the Prosiect Gwyrdd shortlist. An MBT plant at Avonmouth was built for a fraction of the cost in a fraction of the time. This plant has been very successful for the Bristol area, and has recently expanded. Pippa Bartolotti is also Wales Green Party European Candidate

Is this how we will greet a New Year, to the raucous sound of racism, inequality and poverty, and the mindless applause which spurs them on?

Or can we set aside the politics of division, of class and money, and instead give our ovations to real, inspired change born of our innermost need to see all people, all living things, in mutual benefit of the resources we share.

Will we pull back from the trash culture of negative excess – excessive inequality, excessive pollution, excessive debt and excessive hate – and turn towards more joyful pursuits like sharing, giving, growing, advancing. Turning a blind eye to the suffering of others will not bring us the world we wish to see. Poverty is not a crime, but inequality on the scale we see today is. In the 7th richest country in the world, the grinding pain of the trap of poverty should by now be completely abolished. Yet it continues, entrenched in our society, and gets worse.

Most people on welfare are in work. One third of all UK families are relying on welfare to make up more than half their income, and more than 90 per cent of new housing benefit claims over the past two years have been made by employed people. This is unsustainable and wrong. Unsustainable because claims of this growing magnitude are both costly and a negative drain on the taxpayer. Wrong because in the 7th richest country in the world, poverty should be impossible.

Welfare and benefits keep families in the poverty trap. They do so by shelling out just enough to keep people going, whilst removing any sense of self worth and forcing people into the first low paid job which comes to hand. The price of housing is rising too steeply for most pockets, and rental payments have followed suit. Add that to a freeze on wages and rising living costs and you can see that this is heading to a pretty grim picture of rising welfare claims and desperate poverty. 13 million people already live below the poverty line. The rise in the number of foodbanks – currently around 400 – illustrates just how bad the problem is. No-one should be expected to choose between food and fuel. There is an obvious and enlightened solution, and that is the Citizens Income. This is a universal payment to every man and woman as an individual right, and would be enough to cover all basic food, clothing and housing needs. It wouldn’t be fancy, but it would be simple to administer because there would be no means testing – everyone would get it. Those earning more than enough would be taxed accordingly, thus smoothing the playing field.

The current social security system is demeaning and ignores the real roots of poverty. A Citizens Income would transform social security from a compensatory system into an emancipatory system, one that trusts people to make their own decisions, and does not stigmatize them for their circumstances. Just imagine what the country would look like if we could all take time to look for the right job, learn and train whilst our core needs were being looked after, choose to stay home and look after the children.

The welfare state as we know it has outgrown its purpose. Poverty is a mean old master, and the welfare system, sets a trap from which it is very hard to escape. A Citizens Income would ensure self-respect and participation. Many studies have shown that this type of income doesn’t make people lazy. On the contrary it stimulates us to do more, do better. It provides purpose and dignity, closes the income gap and increases choice.

How can we not afford to educate our children, to feed them well and house them properly; how can we not afford to give them choices and give reign to their talents for the common good. 2014 could be the year when the first steps to envisage a Citizens Income are planted firmly in the ground. It could be the year for preparing a fertile foundation from which could grow a sustainable and classless society in which all could flourish. We can afford a Citizens Income, and we can’t afford to miss the opportunity.

Arctic sea ice has diminished enough to allow drilling for oil in the Arctic, where the ice used to be before the seas were warmed by increased CO2 emissions, thus forming a vicious cycle of pollution. In other words, humans cause rising CO2 in the atmosphere, which melts more ice, which reveals more areas for drilling, which produces more fossil fuel to burn, which emit even more CO2 and warm the oceans further.

Climate change brings crowded ironies. Profits made by oil companies reach ever higher, and the call for even greater profits forces yet more drilling, be it fracking, undersea coal beds or just plain old deep sea drilling. More burning of more fossil fuels brings more climate change, but nothing counts except the balance sheet.

Exxon shareholders recently approved a pay increase for CEO Rex Tillerson, whose total compensation in 2012 was $40.3 million. That is excessive. Living this well on the misery of others should not be so amply rewarded.

Meanwhile, more than 1 billion people worldwide will be living with inadequate supplies of water in just a few years, with southern parts of the US and Mediterranean countries worst affected. What people seem to forget, is that if those lands have become difficult to live in, the populations will not just lay down and die, they will walk. These are called climate refugees, and there is no legal status awarded to them. It’s all too easy to label them ‘economic migrants’, but that is hardly the case when they are moving to survive man-made climate disasters.

Displaced people will move, and move again, always seeking a means of living – a job, a shelter, a bit of security – the sort of things most reading this will barely identify with. It has been a habit of humans to be constantly migrating for millennia. But man made artificial borders have denied our natural nomadic impulses. We build castles, walls, and checkpoints to keep the profits in, and the needy out.

It’s not just the CEO of Exxon making millions out of misery. The heads of all the fossil fuel industries and their political cronies are milking it for all they can get, pathetically saying that technology will get us out of the mess, when no such technology exists.

It’s all but inevitable that global warming will reach 2 degrees C in the next couple of decades, and this will lead to much suffering. Countries with the most water will rightly experience the most immigration. Will the UK pull up the drawbridge at the very thought of showing compassion to the tired and thirsty? On current form, it will. The notion of visitors from other EU countries having the same freedom to travel and work as we do, seems to terrify the ruling classes.

The arrival of interesting visitors from Romania and Bulgaria is unlikely to force us all into the sea, or maybe, like the badgers before them, the Romanians and Bulgarians have moved the goal posts. In the UK we have a rich and diverse gene pool. It is our great strength. It would be nice to think that compassion would also be a strength, but the politics of hate are all too evident. We are taught to see the stranger as a threat, the enemy. But in reality the newcomers being new ideas, new ways of working and add colour to the fabric of life.

Of course there are two things we could easily do to mitigate the effects of both climate change and unprecedented movement of people. We could stop seeking out ever more fossil fuels to burn, and never mind that this does not fit with the business models of the giant corporations – they have made more than enough money. Pursuing an aggressive agenda towards clean energy will stop the seas rising and slow the ethically uncomfortable rise in global temperatures.

Secondly we could actually help poorer countries to be more sustainable by sharing expertise and people, by cancelling debt and revoking the so-called free trade agreements which enforce continued poverty on so many developing lands. It is the very lack of prospects forced upon them by the West which propels them to our shores.

Clawing our wealth to ourselves will not stop migration, nor will it mitigate the effects of climate change. The deification of money is leading many developed countries into a sterile siege mentality from which there is no long term good to be gained. The final irony is that the policies of the present government will make all that it seeks to prevent, much, much worse.

The Wales Green Party has raised its concerns at a report issued by The Prince’s Trust of Wales about young people and mental health. The Princes Trust report stated that twenty one per cent of young people in Wales who've been unemployed say they've experienced at least one symptom of poor mental health or emotional wellbeing.

Wales Green Party further notes that even young people who are in work are concerned about having a long-term future within the world of work, due to a very very fragile job market and feels Welsh Ministers should be doing more to attract companies into Wales.

Wales Green Party’s Leader and European Election Candidate Pippa Bartolotti said in response to the report that “Those unemployed, or under employed may receive some money, but they have not received improved chances in life. In too many communities the young have been parked up in poverty, and it is no surprise to me that depression and mental health problems are the result. The poor are picking up the bill created by the richest and this is morally wrong. What young people need is a hand up, not a hand out.

“The current social security system is demeaning and ignores the real roots of poverty. The Green Party proposes a Citizens Income which would transform social security from a compensatory system into an emancipatory system, one that trusts people to make their own decisions, and does not stigmatize them for their circumstances. Many studies have shown that a Citizen’s Income will not make the receivers lazy. On the contrary it will stimulate them to do more, do better. It will provide purpose and dignity, close the income gap and increase choice.

“How can we not afford to educate our children, to feed them well and house them properly; how can we not afford to give them choices and give reign to their talents for the common good. Young people are our future, and we should invest in them accordingly.”

Notes to Editors [1] This press release is in response to - http://www.itv.com/news/wales/update/2014-01-02/princes-trust-we-need-to-reach-out-to-young-people/ [2] Pippa Bartolotti can be contacted via e mail on pippabartolotti@walesgreenparty.com Tel 07981 717757 or 01633 822922 www.wales.greenparty.org.uk

Pippa Bartolotti, Wales Green Party Leader said today:

"The government is now desperately resorting to bribing local residents in a desperate attempt to impose fracking on our communities. This money is being snatched from vital public services, already under huge pressure due to government cuts. “

The Green Party is now the only major political party opposed to this greedy dash for gas. However much money is offered, the facts are clear - fracking won't bring down energy prices, produce many jobs or solve our energy crisis. Instead we need investment in clean renewable energy and energy efficiency schemes so that we confront climate change and reduce people's energy bills."

“The Government is committed to pushing fracking through with a £100,000 bribe from industry – effectively giving a major subsidy to this industry. Cameron’s new major finance bribe will adversely affect those Councils that stand up for their local communities against the interests of the shale gas industry especially in the south of Wales where fracking is being targeted”

Last month, Government seriously scaled back support for people to insulate their homes, promoting it as £50 off household energy bills – money which most people will never see. Drastically cutting the Energy Company Obligation to improve insulation in homes, means it is clear that Government has no interest in helping householders control their energy demand.

The Wales Leader added, “Let’s have an industrial strategy that creates hundreds of thousands of renewable energy jobs, and which properly invests in energy efficiency measures for households so they can reduce their energy needs. Permanently.

“ Greens note that Cameron makes no claim any more that fracked gas will reduce fuel bills for householders and it is clear that it will have no benefit for those households in fuel poverty. This policy is not being applied to renewable energy installations: this typifies the government’s lack of commitment to the green economic sector which is already at serious risk of completely missing national renewable energy targets.

“We are likely to see huge local opposition to fracking - and the Government knows it. Bribing councils is their last ditch attempt to get people to accept this damaging industry.”

Carwyn Jones

First Minister,

National Assembly for Wales

13th January 2014

Dear Carwyn,

I understand that the Welsh Government is under great pressure to declare its hand on fracking, and therefore I am writing to you to explain why accepting David Cameron’s thirty pieces of silver would be the wrong decision.

It is, of course, a bribe. The fact that Cameron has resorted to bribery show just how desperately he wants fracking to go ahead, and how unpalatable the very idea of fracking is to our communities. One look at an arial view of fracking sites in Texas tells all. In one area there are more than 100,000 fracking wells, and now Texas faces a water shortage. Fracking ‘pads’ multiply faster than rabbits in a warm summer. This is the economic wonder of fracking.

I haven’t noticed any community fracking schemes – anywhere in the world - for what community would really want such a thing. And I haven’t noticed any similar bribes for renewable energy farms be they wind, solar or tide. It’s the fracking way or nothing from Cameron.

The benefits outlined today are a fiction. The US has a huge internal economy, and its energy prices are determined internally. By contrast the UK energy prices are bought and sold on the international market, and the pricing is way out of our control. There will be no savings for energy users. Furthermore the bulk of the profits will go to Total, a huge French multinational with hungry shareholders to satisfy, and who may not even declare profits here in the UK. 1% of nothing is nothing.

Fracking is banned in France, so it is a great irony that a French company, barred from tearing up it’s own country, is coming to tear up ours. Bulgaria has long banned fracking, and Germany will soon follow suit.

It will not augur well for the Wales Government to be seen taking bribes from a government consisting largely of the friends of multinationals, whether in banking, in retail, or in energy, and there's a disturbing number of members of the Westminster government with close links to the oil and gas industry.

Shortermism has been the order of the day for too long, and Wales would be better advised to take the long view, especially as the Jane Davidson (2011) report pointed out that we have more than twice the renewable energy we need in clean renewables. Money isn’t everything, but David Cameron is locked in the thought that it is.

You may be under pressure to ‘take the money’ but it is in all our interests that you ‘open the box’ of renewables and sets industry and community on a clear course of investment in price certainty, real energy security, and a commitment to truly uphold our Zero Carbon pledge.

Fracking is the front line of climate change. Decisions taken now will either send us further down the fossil fuel burning route to an overheated planet, or lift us up to the one planet solution so urgently needed. In my view the people of Wales would be proud to move against Westminster bribery and forge forward with the energy revolution, so that this generation’s legacy can be an environment fit for the future, fit for our grandchildren.

Sadly for us all, if it’s only a question of money, you will accept the bribe and the ground will be pillaged and polluted until there is nothing left to squander.

Yours sincerely,

Pippa Bartolotti

Arweinydd Plaid Werdd Cymru

07981 717757

Leader, Wales Green Party

Texas fracking arial picture http://commonsensecanadian.ca/birds-eye-view-texas-fracking-causes-rumble/

Wales Green Party has returned a new Deputy Leader, Anthony Slaughter who lives in Penarth near Cardiff, in their annual leadership ballot. Anthony is a garden designer who has worked in the area for several years and is very well known locally for his involvement with the community based environmental group Gwyrddio Penarth Greening of which he is currently Chair. This involvement has included the planting of the Community Orchard at Cosmeston Lakes and Anthony is also part of the team behind the annual GPG Penarth Local Food Festival.

Anthony stood as the Green Party candidate for the St Augustine’s ward in the 2012 local elections and also in the Cardiff South and Penarth parliamentary by election later the same year. Both campaigns saw an increase in the Green Party share of the vote. Pippa Bartolotti, Leader of the Wales Greens who was voted in for the third year running, said “I am delighted to have Anthony as our Deputy Leader. He brings wonderful energy and many strengths with him. At a time when climate change is taking hold, and weather patterns are becoming more and more unpredictable, I am confident that the Greens can provide the leadership which has been so badly lacking from other politicians.”

The Greens are now being called, more than ever, to make statements to the media, about the state of the ecological environment and what we can do to mitigate the worst effects of climate change. The latest manoeuvres by the Westminster government to effectively bribe local councils into accepting fracking have made us the first port of call for a sensible voice on the inherent dangers of fracturing shale rock, and the clear, clean alternatives.

The new Deputy, Anthony Slaughter added, “ I am very excited at being selected for this role and look forward to working closely with Pippa in spreading awareness of the Green Party’s wide ranging policies on environmental and social justice issues and helping make the Party an essential voice in Welsh politics.’’

Will you take 30 seconds to sign it right now? Here's the link: http://goo.gl/sB4qPD

Here's why it's important:

Ecocide is the extensive damage to, or destruction or loss of ecosystems to the extent that the peaceful existence of the inhabitants of that territory is severely diminished. 

The current prediction for global temperature rise as a result of our continuing use of fossil fuels is that it will reach four degrees centigrade above pre industrial levels by the end of this century. It could rise even faster: methane gas is now escaping through cracks in the ice caps. Methane is twenty times more potent than C02 in trapping global radiation. 

This is likely to mean coastal erosion, loss of ecosystems, unpredictable weather patterns such that human food security will be severely compromised. 

The use of chemical agents such as neonincotinoids and depleted uranium have already had potentially disastrous consequences for pollinating insects and human health. 

We therefore ask our government to act now to ensure that the lives of future generations are protected by creating a sustainable economy where survival of people and planet is valued above the pursuit of profit.

A UK company, G W Pharmaceuticals, which markets ingredients extracted from the cannabis plant has recently raised $101.1 million on the US NASDAQ market.

It has been illegal for ordinary people to grow cannabis in the UK since 1971, despite its well documented medicinal properties, and has been a class C drug for most of the time since it was initially banned in 1925. Possession of cannabis still carries a prison sentence.

Pippa Bartolotti, Wales Green Party Leader said today, “It is plainly contradictory to let a large corporation make massive profits out of this useful medicinal plant, when sufferers of epilepsy, MS, cancer and other painful conditions are criminalised for using it.

“The hemp plant is one of our most versatile and useful plants. Banning it has always been short-sighted. Plastics made from hemp can be completely bio-degradable, and have the potential to reduce oil consumption and the processing of petrochemicals. Even better they enrich the soil they are grown in, proving that this is one of the most ecologically sustainable plants in the world.”

The criminalisation of cannabis was rooted in prejudice born of racism and fear in the beginning of the 20th Century. Before that time cannabis was found in most remedies in every family cabinet, particularly in Victorian England and the USA.

The Wales Leader added “It is clear that the criminalisation of cannabis continues today to protect corporate profits, not to protect the health of people, because even the Governments own reports say cannabis is barely addictive and certainly not a killer. It is highly irresponsible of Government to continue to leave young people at the mercy of the black market, resulting in exposure to harder drugs. We need to decriminalise cannabis urgently.”

Possession and intent to supply cannabis carries a maximum prison sentence of fourteen years. In comparison, the maximum sentence for attempted sexual intercourse with a girl under 13 is seven years.

The latest estimate from the NHS Health and Social Care Information Centre for the UK is that, in 2011, 79,100 people died in England from deaths caused by smoking. 8,748 people died from alcohol-related death. Cannabis is implicated in 23 deaths in England and none in Wales.

Healthcare is now a very technical business. This means that a lot of machinery is involved and a lot of specialised medical staff is needed.

The problem in Wales is that we are not attracting enough highly trained doctors and nurses to realise the healthcare objectives of a modern society. Privatisation is creeping in from across the border, and with it the demise of the cherished principle of universal healthcare, free at the point of delivery.

Wales Green Party Leader Pippa Bartolotti said “Of course I see Wales as a wonderful place in which to live and work, but it’s clear that this message has not been communicated at all well outside the country. Most doctors love and respect the principles of the NHS, so the Wales Government should step up to the plate and work hard to promote a true NHS, founded on the principles of the Beveridge Report, free of privatisation and in democratic public ownership. I am quite sure this freedom from privatisation would attract many of the highly qualified people we so badly need.”

In the heady days of the Welsh Development Agency Wales attracted all kinds of high level skills, but along with the demise of WDA, the momentum to create a vibrant and sustainable NHS has floundered. It has long been known that Wales spends more on healthcare per patient than other parts of the UK but the outcomes are proving to be remarkable only in their failure. Even the Health Minister says that 20% of healthcare interventions are pointless.

Pippa Bartolotti added, “There will obviously be the need to set up centres of technical excellence, but that should not in any way prevent local care from being available, and excellent in itself. The emphasis on local hospitals surely has to concern itself as much as with prevention of illness, as cure, so that we can have a truly National Health Service, and not the National Sick Service people are forced to tolerate.

“I would like the Wales Government to concentrate properly on attracting the best skills available to the NHS in Wales. Without them Wales will be forever shortchanged.”

The Green Party believes that compassion and illness prevention must underpin our healthcare system. By supporting healthier eating, exercise and access to nature and by reducing pollution and social inequalities, a Green government will support mental wellbeing while minimising healthcare needs and costs. Greens will maintain a publicly funded, publicly provided and decentralised health service.

http://policy.greenparty.org.uk/he

Pippa Bartolotti is also the Lead Green candidate for the European elections in Wales

News that cancer will cost countries in the European Union £107bn a year, according to the first EU-wide analysis of the economic impact of the disease, has just been released. The study recently completed by University of Oxford and King's College London, states that £43bn of this was down to healthcare costs including doctors' time and drug costs.

The cost to families of providing care was put at £19.5bn.

A huge proportion of these costs are down to the type of drugs manufactured by large pharmaceutical companies, made of a concoction of chemicals which often have very nasty side effects, and which as yet show no signs of providing a cure.

Pippa Bartolotti, Wales Green Party leader said today, “I have recently read through some 37 peer reviewed papers all of which come to one startling conclusion – that the non-psychoactive (known as CBD) component in the readily grown cannabis plant has the ability to destroy cancer cells.

“The remarkable medicinal properties of cannabis should not be overlooked just because it is easy to grow in your own backyard, and the patent isn’t under the control of multinational corporations. It really is unsupportable that those who have already discovered the benefits of CBD should be treated as criminals in this country.“

In North America, South America and some parts of Europe cannabis has been decriminalised. Possession is legal or effectively legal in the Netherlands, Uruguay and in the States of Colorado and Washington. The medicinal use of cannabis is legal in a number of countries, including Canada, the Czech Republic and Israel. The Wales leader added,

“If we are to fight cancer effectively, and alleviate the suffering of many people in the UK we must de-criminalize the use of medicinal marijuana with haste.”

Endocannabinoids are found in human breast milk and are vital for proper human development. They are naturally produced within the body and play a major role in overall health. Similarly, medical marijuana and phytocannabinoids derived from cannabis have exhibited a number of therapeutic benefits.

Researchers at St George's, University of London, have found non-hallucinogenic cannabinoids are effective anti-cancer drugs.

All over the world Greens and scientists are watching with dismay at the extreme weather conditions descending on land and sea with ever more destructive frequency.

Pippa Bartolotti, Wales Green Party Leader said today “Try telling the people of Cornwall and the south coast that our lives are all about economic growth. Try telling the people of South Wales who cannot even get out of their houses for the storms and water that this is all about economic growth - and we should be wanting more of it.”

A recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states that they are 95% certain that humans are the “dominant cause” of global warming since the 1950s.

Poor building codes, planning permission on flood plains, burning of fossil fuels, fracking and drilling are all about economic growth of the sort which should have been rejected 30 years ago, when the warnings were already clear.

The Wales Leader added, “ 30 years ago we knew that extreme weather conditions would be the result of our addiction to fossil fuels, yet more concrete has been poured into the ground, woods and hedges have been uprooted to make way for unsustainable agriculture, flood plains have been compromised and more roads built. We continue to burn and mine, heedless of the warnings.”

Continuous economic growth is not sustainable in any form. There is a limit to what we can drill or mine out of the planet, there is a limit to the amount of pollution we can put into the air we breathe. The results of reaching those limits are finally being revealed.

Pippa Bartolotti added, “Simply showing the evidence for climate change does not appear to be enough to open minds which are closed to all but the treacherous concept of economic growth. Yet it is clearly madness to continue failed economic policies when we should instead be enacting vigorous energy conservation and efficiency programmes to reduce the impact of climate change and the suffering it brings with it. “

Extreme weather? We all know how we got here - Generations of fighting against nature instead of working with her.

The stone age did not end for lack of stone, and the fossil fuel age will not end for lack of oil, coal or gas. It will end because we want it to. So here is what we do:

1. stop building on flood plains

2. improve building standards to Passivhaus or better

3. manage land so that it is flood and drought resistant

4. invest heavily in public transport systems par excellence

5. insulate all buildings to stop energy wastage.

6. invest heavily in design for future clean energy living

7. cut fossil fuel subsidies - £12b a year

8. bring in effective carbon taxes. The polluter must pay

As more and more people understand what's at stake, they become a part of the solution.

The time for debating the existence of climate change has long passed. We now urgently need to debate what we are going to do about it, and act.

The average temperature has not been 2C above pre-industrial levels for about 115,000 years. Unchecked climate change means that we allow CO2 emissions to soar, and thus take us over the generally agreed safe limit of 2 degrees warming.

We have known that rising global temperatures would cause climate change for 30 years or more. Similarly we have known how to stop these changes (by reducing CO2 output) and that the longer we take to address the problem, the more costly it will be to protect our communities and businesses. Yet scientists have been paid to lie about climate change, and climate change deniers are even now being given valuable media time.

It is no longer about a balanced debate. It is about urgent action, and what that action will be. Now is the time to bite the bullet and recognise that serious mitigation measures are going to cost big money. Money is not for lining the already stuffed pockets of the wealthy - top earners paid £10billion more in tax when the 50p rate was in place. Money is rightfully to be used for the benefit of the common good. Dealing successfully with climate change presents short term problems, and expensive ones. The poor cannot be expected to pay for them through petty taxes such as the pitiful bedroom tax, but those who pollute the most are the ones who can afford the most.

The fossil fuel industry has long known that it is huge part of the problem, yet the UK government still subsidises the fossil fuel industry to the tune of £4.3 billion a year, and aviation fuel is subsidised at a remarkable £9.92bn every year. Dealing with climate change means the polluter has to pay, and why not.

Nonsensically, this government is actually paying the polluter to pollute. There are numerous examples of money being spent on supporting fossil fuel industries. The FCO maintains a consulate with three diplomats in Basra largely to meet the needs and demands of BP and Shell. At over £2 million per diplomat per year, the £6.5 million annual budget is significant. Similar support is given to the fossil fuel industry all over the world.

Tax breaks given out by George Osborne since 2012 are so far worth £864 million to the oil and gas industry. Added on to that figure will be the ludicrous notion of tax breaks for fracking. These tax breaks are in addition to the massive subsidy the fossil fuel industry gets by not having to pay the full costs of the economic, social and environmental damage caused through air pollution, climate change and oil spills. The biggest subsidy the fossil fuel industry receives is not being made to pay the costs of the damage they cause. For as long as oil and gas extraction is taking place, it is right to tax it heavily.

These taxes should rightfully be paying to mop up the Thames Valley and the Somerset levels, for sea walls and flood defences wherever our communities need them. There are obvious measures we can enact to prevent the heartache and expense of a changing climate in the UK, but even these are ignored. Not building on flood plains is an obvious step to take, but no-one is taking it. We also need to up our game on building standards. The German Passivhaus standard should be achieved for all new build at the very least. It may cost an estimated 3% more to build, but the energy savings alone are worth it.

Progress requires investment and facing up to the real prices of energy, and just like any precious commodity, we have to safeguard supplies and say no to waste. Agricultural practices are another major cause of climate changing concern. Land management and intensive farming methods are adding significantly to greenhouse gas emissions. Farmers can be a prickly lot, but the land is a vast sequester of CO2, and constant tillage together with abnormal use of fertilizers is a high risk problem which is not being addressed.

Our failure to meaningfully deal with the threat of climate change is in no small part related to the various arms of governmental institutions intimately supporting the expansion of the fossil fuel industry. But still the subsidies grow almost in line with our greenhouse gas emissions, and the link is not being broken.

There is no real option other than to move rapidly to decarbonise energy. Taxes should be used as a disincentive for polluting activity that keeps our economy hooked on fossil fuels. All tools of Government should focus on making renewables energy cheaper and energy saving more attractive, not bolstering rich oil companies.

We know we are heading catastrophically in the wrong direction when fossil fuel subsidies are six times more than subsidies to renewables.

The IPCC are due to release their next big report on climate change, and leaks so far tell us the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are going much further in their warnings than ever before. They warn that “starvation, poverty, flooding, heat waves, droughts, war and disease [are] likely to worsen as the world warms from man-made climate change.”

Pippa Bartolotti, Wales Green Party leader said “This country is being run by climate thugs. The devastating floods have shown us that when extreme weather events descend, the UK has no way of dealing with them, let alone preventing them. Across the world we see record heat waves, record low temperatures and record storms. You just have to join the dots. Nature is sending us the clearest possible warning signals.”

The International Energy Agency informed us as far back as 2009 that “The world will have to spend an extra $500 billion to cut carbon emissions for each year it delays implementing a major assault on global warming.” Economists have estimated that climate-related damages are already costing us more than 1 trillion dollars worldwide. Those costs will only rise if we do nothing about this problem.

The Wales Leader added, “It should be clear by now to anyone with a brain that climate change has to be stopped in its tracks. This government is not going to do it because they are more keen to keep the dirty fossil fuel industry going with £16 billion or more in subsidies, than working to reduce CO2 pollution. The UK Governments are clearly part of the problem, and we can no longer afford them.”

The upper safety limit for atmospheric CO2 is 350 parts per million (ppm). Atmospheric CO2 levels have stayed higher than 350 ppm since early 1988. Today they are 397.80ppm.

The Greens in Wales have put Women’s Rights at the top of their agenda – why?

Since the recession of 2008, women’s progress in almost every sphere - from pay to prospects - has gone into reverse. It’s no coincidence that action on correcting our rapidly degrading environment has plummeted in a similar way.

Women outdo men in university qualifications, yet less than 16% of these talented, skilled and well trained people are in our boardrooms. Greens are happy to support quotas for director level women – 40% until 2020 – because gender balance in boardrooms will bring us better run companies, and by that we mean companies which will be more aware of the urgent issues facing us, such as the environmental and social costs of continuing with business as usual.

There are many similarities between women’s rights, and environmental rights. Both are about challenging existing power structures and questioning outdated business models, but in this thoughtless throwaway society, the valuable opinions and ideas of women are being thrown out with the rubbish.

Business as usual is not an option. There is a cost to every aspect of what we produce and what we buy, and that cost has so far not been counted. The power to damage our land, water and air should not come free of charge, any more than the labour of our women.

For example, it is well known that peak oil has been passed, which is why the big fossil fuel companies are digging ever deeper to reach ever more inaccessible deposits of oil and gas. The true cost of fracking and deep sea drilling is paid for, not by them, but by corrupting the land, the sea and the air with ever higher pollution, ever decreasing biodiversity, and ever rising prices.

Business as usual has failed the ecosystem, has failed the next generation, and has failed women. It’s a cycle which is not sustainable in anything but the short run, But the even worse news is that the longer we continue these polluting ways, the more expensive it will be to put the mistakes right. Of course some things – like the extinction of animals – cannot be put right.

Greens believe in sharing power between men and women, and know that for business large and small there must be a balanced point of view for the best outcomes to be achieved. We will enable women to do better so that all our lives can be better. We will make sure there is more flexible working time, plentiful childcare options, and an end to the gender pay gap.

In Wales, female unemployment is now a record 57,000 and rising, and when women do get work, it is mostly low paid and part-time, and in no way reflects our magnificent value. On this International Women’s day we must not be patient. Equality has never come despite the work of so many good men and women. Equality has not come to us, so we must go to it. There is too much at stake to wait another 40 years - or more.

If society truly cares about the living standards, health and happiness of the next generation, it will have to stand aside and let women walk serenely through to the boardroom, because it is clear to me that there will never be a formal invitation.

Women make up half the population, yet we are underrepresented, underpaid and unwelcome at the top. The Greens are the only political party who will put women high on the agenda because we know none of today’s problems will be solved without us.

The UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs is meeting this week to discuss possible changes in the regulation of drugs thus far deemed illegal. In March 1961, the UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs was signed.

This Convention obliges all UN member states to prohibit the production and distribution of a number of psychoactive substances that are considered dangerous for public health.

Pippa Bartolotti, Wales Green party Leader said, “It is time to separate out the use of cannabis from hard drugs such as heroin and cocaine. No one has yet died from using cannabis, in fact the health benefits of cannabis in the treatment of epilepsy and cancer are already well documented. Commercial organisations in the UK are already allowed to patent and sell cannabis extracts, whilst the population as a whole is criminalised for using it – even if it saves their life. This simply has to be changed.

“Cannabis has been wrongly labelled as a gateway drug. It is not. It is the criminalisation of it which is the gateway to harder drugs. If we remove cannabis from the black market there will be many benefits for society – not least in taxation. In Colorado, where the commercial sale of cannabis is now legal, the state has collected $3.5 million in taxes in the first 2 months. “

There is some confusion as to how legalisation would look. For example to compare cannabis with alcohol would be a mistake. Alchohol is responsible for thousands of deaths every year. Alcohol, along with cigarettes, has been marketed heavily for decades. Cannabis would not be marketed or advertised. It would simply be available through licensed suppliers. This would have the effect of providing a much better quality product, free from unknown and often toxic additives, and free from the unsavoury pressures of the black market.

The Wales Leader added, “The so-called War on Drugs was lost as soon as it was started, with billions spent on policing and imprisonment, none of which have worked. It’s time to face up to the facts. Decriminalisation of cannabis will save those billions, plus it will add taxable income to the Treasury where it should rightfully be spent on public health. Yet only the Greens have the courage to stand up for the scientific evidence and push for change in the law.”

Since legalisation in January 2014, 59 cannabis firms in Colorado filed tax returns on an estimated $14m in sales. 20 US states allow for the sale of medical marijuana.

The debate on the need for a study of alternative drug policies is intensifying and gaining speed at a global scale. The experiences with (de facto) cannabis decriminalization in the Netherlands and with decriminalization of the other drugs in Portugal and other countries show that legal regulation of previously forbidden drugs does not increase the drug problem.

Pippa Bartolotti added, “Continuation of this costly drug prohibition, without considering the alternatives, must be seen as a dereliction of duty. Future generations will want to know how it was possible that this disastrous prohibition of cannabis has continued for so long.”

CLIMATE change will spiral out of control, worsening poverty, inequality and conflict – unless we put renewables and energy conservation at the heart of energy policy, the Wales Green Party Leader, Pippa Bartolotti warned today.

“Of course we need to tackle the obscene profits and high domestic energy prices as we do so, but by re-organizing the sector, increasing public funding for domestic energy-saving devices and community renewable energy generation – not by cutting the so-called 'Green Crap',” said Ms Bartolotti.

She made her comments after scientists published the latest International Panel on Climate Change report today.

The report warns that the poorest around the world will be disproportionately affected, warning of food shortages, heatwaves, flooding and other weather-related disasters, unless Governments act to reduce carbon and other emissions now.

The UN report also warned, for the first time, that climate change was fuelling conflict, and that no-one would be immune unless greenhouse gas emissions are reduced.

“The report makes stark reading,” said the Wales Leader "Wales is a part of the wider world, and many will already be aware of the effects of climate change in other countries.

“It's clear that if we act now we can avert some of the worst impacts – and we'll have a chance to draw up a new global deal on reducing emissions fairly when world leaders meet in Paris next year.

“But the EU will really need to play a leadership role: championing the targets proposed by the Greens: to reduce emissions by at least 60% or more by 2030 and to set targets for adopting energy conservation and renewable energy generation measures.

“We'll need strong Green voices for the environment in the European Parliament after the election in May for that to happen.”

Recent news that there might be up to a trillion tons of coal under Welsh seas should not get us clamouring to dig it out.

Scientists agree that if we are to stop the worst effects of a warming earth (limiting it to 2 degrees C) we must leave all remaining fossil fuels in the ground.

Pippa Bartolotti, Wales Green Party Leader said. “The amount of investment needed to pull out this coal – whether vaporized or otherwise - from below the sea bed will be enormous. We would be pouring money into old-style fuel instead of putting it into clean renewable energies and investing in a decent future for our grandchildren.

She went on to say, “Leaving aside the inevitable and tragic outcome of more burning which will devastate our wildlife and natural places beyond recognition, we simply have to divert this investment to improve and increase our natural clean energy sources.”

It is widely accepted that propping up the outdated business models of the fossil fuel industry will only lead to massive expenditure in trying to mitigate the effects of extreme weather in the future.

The Wales Leader added, ”I am totally against more fossil burning for profit. The costs of bigger sea walls, of drought, flooding and storms will be huge if we fly in the face of scientific advice. The public will have to pay for the damage, but the multinational fossil fuel companies will be only too happy to pocket the profits.”