Without question, our response will have an impact in the years to come. One of the challenges we have is that our population is growing. We have gone from less than 3.5 million people in the early 1990s to 5.2 million today and that is a factor across public services, housing, climate and economic growth. Maintaining and supporting that population creates its own challenges for us with regard to climate change. I have been at the European Council and the EU has been clear about the targets for 2030 and 2050 and, more critically, to reduce dependency on fossil fuels. The war in Ukraine has accelerated the move to reduce dependency on coal for energy and so on by the end of the decade. In the short term, because of the crisis brought about by the war in Ukraine, some countries are unfortunately moving back to coal and so forth. From our perspective, we need to double down on offshore wind energy, as well as additional onshore wind energy, to eliminate our dependency on fossil fuels over time.

Regarding a specific treaty, we have signed up for Fit for 55 within the EU. We as a country have set extremely challenging targets in respect of climate. The Deputy referred to the "so-called Green Party". I think the Green Party has made a significant contribution to this agenda. The programme for Government is clear both about the climate issue and the biodiversity crisis. We want to move from the fossil fuel area. The challenge will be how fast we can do it as the population grows and how we can, through planning systems and so on, get both onshore and offshore wind proposals through. We have choices to make as a society. We do not actually have the luxury to oppose all forms of energy development. People in communities have rights and entitlements. Given the nature of the crisis, I support the view of the President of the European Commission that we need an overriding public interest clause for offshore wind, for example, and the crisis in climate should override other considerations once we have fully considered people's concerns. We should then be in a position to accelerate and pass vital infrastructure that will be required through the planning process.

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