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Working with the Welsh government and the Assembly

Progress in embedding the 'One Planet' aspiration in Welsh Government

Is the Welsh Government delivering a One Planet, low carbon Wales?

The last Welsh Assembly Government won praise for its bold vision of a ‘One Planet Wales’. WWF Cymru has reviewed their progress to date and proposes key actions for the new government to make this a reality and ensure Wales is one of the leaders in the development of sustainable economies around the globe.

The Welsh Government has a statutory duty to promote sustainable
development. The last Welsh Assembly Government took major steps towards effective delivery of this duty.

In 2007, at the start of the last Welsh Assembly Government, WWF
Cymru laid out the scale of the challenge on environmental sustainability, in our report One Planet Wales1. This identified the need to reduce our ecological footprint by 75% and our carbon emissions by 80% by 2050.

Since then, the United Nations Environment Programme has warned
that global emissions must have peaked by the middle of this decade
and be on a steep downward path by 2020, if we are to have a reasonable prospect of keeping the rise in global warming to less than 2°C.

The Welsh Assembly Government has made a commendable start to tackling our ecological and carbon footprints through its One Wales:
One Planet scheme. The One Wales agreement committed us to 3% per annum reductions and the climate change strategy commits to the 40% by 2020 target.These commitments are laudable and clearly match the scale required.

However, what progress has been made in delivering on these commitments?

To answer these questions, WWF Cymru commissioned research to critically examine the policy mechanisms developed by the Welsh
Assembly Government.

A link to the full report by Dr Alan Netherwood, WWF Cymru's summary document and a discussion paper by Peter Roderick can be found in the right column.

In Summary:
• Welsh Government has a good overall vision and has made good
progress on the short term actions required.
• However, there is a lack of consistent application to achieve the
goal of a One Planet Wales, both across government and in its advice to the public sector.
• There is no plan, with key milestones, driving cross-government
action in meeting the One Planet goals.
• There is a lack of assessment of the impact on carbon and ecological footprint of individual policies, programmes and expenditure and their cumulative impact. Therefore, it is
impossible for Welsh government to know whether its plans and
programmes are sufficient to achieve the goals.