The Wales Green Party is concerned that the Environment (Wales) Bill, shortly to go through the Senedd, falls far short of what we need to be a truly carbon neutral and sustainable society.
Wales Green Party leader, Pippa Bartolotti said, “It is not the fault of ordinary people, who are struggling to recycle and minimise their own pollution, it is a fault of governance. Clean energy is so obviously available in this land of abundant natural resources such as water, solar and wind, that it verges on the criminal that we do not make more use of it.”
Pollution in Wales was up 14% in 2009-2010, and is 12th highest in the world. In 2011 – 2012 carbon pollution went up 5%.
Pippa Bartolotti added, “Greens are very disappointed that carbon targets in Wales have consistently been missed, despite the sterling work of industry which have reduced their own carbon emissions by 41%. What we need now is for government to stop allowing dirty power stations to continue to operate and swiftly switch to carbon free energy.
“Greenhouse gas emissions in Wales can be rapidly reduced to zero using the technology we already have. We can clearly maintain a modern standard of living, and the bonus is that 1.5 million jobs would be created across the UK. That would be roughly 200,000 jobs in Wales.”
Wales has a long uphill struggle to bring greenhouse emissions down to even the unambitious figure of 80% of 1990 levels by 2050.
The leader of the Wales Greens also said “We must urgently stop plans which increase carbon emissions such as the £1billion M4 across the Gwent levels, and spend the money on carbon reduction plans such as the South Wales Metro.
“In the final analysis, there is little point in having a Bill of measures intending to reduce carbon emissions by even 3% a year, if the country does not stick to them. The Welsh Government needs to up their ambition and make us a truly sustainable society to be proud of.”
Worldwide, fossil fuels are subsidised by $100million a minute – more than the combined spending on healthcare of every country in the world. If the costs of damage to the ecosystem was added in, the subsidy would be far greater. Removing these subsidies would put clean energy on a level playing field with harmful fossil fuels.