Glimpse #2: Wales vs Ecological Crisis
Over recent years, the little nation of Wales has bucked what is arguably a global trend of quiet disengagement from meaningful action on climate and biodiversity.
It has done so despite its government’s limited power as part of the UK.
It has done so with its citizens.
I wrote the first draft of this piece looking out of a cafe window at a flooded playground. As I put it in CITIZENS, we are now living in the age of consequences. Ecological crisis is no longer a future possibility to be averted; it is a present reality to be faced.
But if we can learn the “lessons from a small country” that Wales offers, in the subtitle of Jane Davidson’s phenomenal book, I continue to believe that it is a reality we are more than capable of facing.
The outcomes: what the Welsh have achieved
In the current context of farmer protests, fanned by the Far Right, and the seeming total inability of our media to give us any sense of what is working in the world, I want to start this piece by giving a little rundown of what has been achieved in Wales. It’s seriously impressive.
There has been major investment in both energy efficiency and renewable energy generation, with significant support for domestic retrofit, solar and wind installations on public land and buildings, and flagship schemes like the 320-megawatt Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon. Transport for Wales has a commitment to 100% renewable electricity for all stations and the electrification of tracks on the lines that serve the South Wales valleys, with half of this energy being produced in Wales. Work is also under way to connect up existing woodland, and procure and certify far more — with support including the beautifully named Tiny Forests (Coetiroedd Bach) Grant scheme — in order to create a networked National Forest for Wales.
The effort is systemic, addressing the underlying structures and norms as well as these more outwardly visible initiatives. Public sector procurement is shifting, with a Foundational Economy Challenge Fund launched in 2019 to support work to provide for public services locally and sustainably. My personal favourite is the new Curriculum for Wales, with its stated purpose to support learners to become “ethical, informed citizens of Wales and the world.” As this framing reflects, the Welsh are doing this work not with a myopic focus on climate or carbon emissions, or even simply incorporating nature and biodiversity, but with a holistic view that also incorporates issues of justice and inclusion: at the same time, Wales has also become an official Nation of Sanctuary.
It’s all happening because in 2015, the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act was passed into law by the Welsh Senedd.
The Act enshrines the rights of future generations alongside current, creating a legal duty for Welsh government ministers and the organisations they oversee to embed this commitment into everything they do.
A truly significant Act
This is not just another bit of legislation; it is an intervention that reimagines and reconstitutes the whole purpose and logic of government, from the very core.
Rather than just lament the dominance of economic growth as the more-or-less explicit default goal of all public policy, the Act actually replaces it.
Instead of measuring itself by GDP, the Welsh government has enshrined a mandate to deliver seven inter-related goals: health, prosperity, resilience, communities, language and heritage, equality, and Wales’ role in the world.
The Act also defines five ways of working to deliver these goals: prevention, long-termism, collaboration, participation, and integrating activities to reach positive outcomes for as many of the goals as possible.
Crucially, the Act created power structures both to support and to hold government to account against both the goals and the ways of working. It established the role of the Commissioner for Future Generations, and perhaps even more importantly, redefined the role of the Auditor General for Wales as being to assess the work of public bodies against both the goals and the ways of working — not just their financial accounting and performance.
The backstory: an Act of the people, not just the parliament
All this has been possible because the Welsh government has not tried to impose this on its citizens, or even do it for them.
From the conception of the Act through definition and into implementation, this is Citizen Democracy: government working with people.
Renewable generation and retrofit is happening in collaboration with and often driven by community organisations; the National Forest is not a single infrastructure project but a network connecting what are often private contributions; the new curriculum has been developed through a major participatory process.
The tone for it all was set by the process which defined the mandate for the Act in the first place: a distributed, networked national conversation called The Wales We Want. Launched in February 2014 and running right through to the launch of the Act the following year, this saw people asked about the Wales they wanted to leave behind for their children and grandchildren, and to consider the challenges, aspirations and ways to solve long-term problems to create the Wales they want by 2050.
There were hundreds of events across Wales, spawning themed conversations such as “The Wales Women Want,” “The Llanelli We Want,” “The Energy We Want,” “The Wales Young Farmers Want,” and more. All this served to set the pattern, not just of consulting people, but involving them and instilling ownership of a new vision for Wales that, in the words of one minister, “government could legislate for, but required much wider public engagement in delivery — in other words, a duty that bound government but also extended beyond it.”
Where are they now?
As mentioned at the beginning of this piece, farmers are currently protesting in Wales — as across Europe — with environmental legislation in the firing line. In January, Tata announced the closure of its blast furnaces at Port Talbot, eliminating 2800 jobs, “as part of plans to make its unprofitable UK operation leaner and greener.” As elsewhere, this corporate and media framing pushes the idea that climate and economic imperatives are coming into contest, and those who would undermine the progress made in Wales are keen to capitalise. 9 years on from the passing of the Act, it seems likely to come under greater pressure in the coming weeks and months than ever before.
My take is that, actually, this could represent a moment of real opportunity.
The Act was born of a “national conversation” in Wales, with thousands of people involved. If the Welsh were now to complement the structures of the Act by involving even more people — and ensuring those involved are truly representative of the whole population — this could become a moment to strengthen and recommit to its mandate. This could become a moment to gather the Welsh people together to challenge the UK government to make space for them to achieve even more, and to draw attention to what has been achieved on the global stage, so more nations might follow Wales’ lead.
How exactly might they do that? This is where I want to move to my next glimpse of Citizen Democracy in action, just across the waters of the Irish Sea. For now, though, I’ll leave the last word to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, quoted in Jane Davidson’s powerful little book…
People of Wales have big hearts. They belong in a small country, but oh man, they really have the kick of a mule!
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This is the seventh piece in a writing exercise I’m undertaking at the start of 2024 to figure out what I see as the work that needs doing in the world, and the work I need to do. Check out the Introduction for the overall framing, Clarity Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 for the definition of the challenge, Imagination Part 1 for the reason why I’m looking for Glimpses of Citizen Democracy, and the first of those glimpses in Taiwan’s Covid response. If any of it sparks something in you, post a comment or email me, I’d love your thoughts. If you want to stay in touch, you can join my mailing list here.
