Plaid Cymru will embed climate action at the heart of government.
We will deliver an updated Climate and Nature Action Plan for Wales, focused on charting a practical pathway to net zero by 2040 and prioritising community energy, green skills and jobs, cleaner transport, energy-efficient homes, and the protection and restoration of nature-rich landscapes.
To ensure that action on climate and nature is prioritised and effectively co-ordinated across government, we will:
- Embed decarbonisation, sustainability and environmental protection as cabinet-level, cross-cutting responsibilities across all portfolio areas.
- Strengthen accountability by providing clear public reporting on Wales’s progress towards net zero through an accessible online dashboard.
- Improve Wales’s preparedness for climate impacts by publishing a regularly updated climate risk assessment.
- Establish a Just Transition Board to guide net zero strategy – bringing together relevant experts and ensuring key stakeholders have a meaningful role in shaping policy.
We will use new powers on environmental governance to set ambitious targets on nature recovery – halting biodiversity loss and achieving substantive recovery by 2050. Under the Environment (Principles, Governance and Biodiversity Targets) Act, we will establish a strong and independent Office for Environmental Governance Wales (OEGW) that is able to hold public authorities to account for delivering on environmental targets.
We will support the National Nature Service for Wales as a vehicle for increasing eco-literacy, growing green skills and creating new jobs and livelihood opportunities in nature recovery.
We will work with other UK nations to ban the sale of horticultural peat and continue work on peatland restoration.
In reviewing and reforming spatial planning, we will seek the right balance between food security, nature recovery and access to nature, local development needs, and renewable energy when it comes to land use. And we will improve marine planning and promote the sustainability of our coastal and marine environments.
We will ensure that planning regulations better facilitate the green transition, including through firmer consenting timelines for renewable energy projects and permitted development rights for heat pumps, household solar and other small-scale renewables.