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Opinion

The flood we want and need

By Mark Mansfield
Flooding on Sion Street in Pontypridd - Image: Matthew Horwood

David Wilkins

Climate change, driven by the emissions from our lifestyles, is the greatest threat to our civilization that we have ever faced.

In the past few days we’ve seen the devastating impact of Storm Bert as it leaves flooding, landslides, ruined livelihoods and grieving communities in its wake. Such once in a lifetime events have become all too common.

The thought of the more frequent and more devastating consequences of climate change haunt us; we fear passing the legacy of our pollution onto our grandchildren. We are desperate for a solution. A real solution that allows us to lead lives still worth living and offers hope for the future.

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Glacial

What scares us most is that the odds seem stacked against us. Governments and businesses appear more committed to talking than acting, the pace of change is glacial (pun fully intended!). So, what can we do?

WE can start from the ground up. WE can get started. To use a tired metaphor, we can begin cutting up the elephant. We can focus on small changes that lead to significant outcomes.

Take the daunting goal of decarbonizing electricity generation and transportation - here in Wales, across the UK, and globally. It’s too monumental for any one of us to tackle alone. But I can do a little bit. When I cycle to work instead of driving, I swap my car for my bike. It’s only 7 miles a day, but it’s a manageable change. Now that’s part of my lifestyle, I can look for the next change.

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Creating a Flood

If we all start making tiny changes, these tiny positive impacts, like raindrops will add up. Tiny raindrops become streams and rivers and torrents which will wash away the barriers, overcoming the most stubborn of challenges.This is the kind of flood that we need.

However, we also need governments, both in Westminster and Cardiff, willing to embrace this idea. They must stop selfishly clinging to the reins, dictating where money is spent and which approved contractors will pocket millions. Instead, they should empower local councils to loan money to community groups, enabling them to implement small-scale changes tailored to their needs.

We need easier access to finance, so a school can install solar panels on its roof and a community centre can afford to install heat pumps. We need county councils that support small-scale hydro projects and wind turbines. We need a government committed to helping us solve our problems at the local level, fostering innovation within our communities.

Can it be Done?

Yes is the simple answer. Ynni Ogwen, a community benefit society has financed a small scale hydro electric power station on the river Ogwen, in Bethesda. They supply green electricity to the local community, cutting the energy costs of those members of the community involved in the scheme. So successful is the scheme that it’s now reinvesting profits into installing photovoltaic panels, expanding the reach of the project. And, because it’s run by the community, for the community, it hasn’t seen the NIMBY backlash you’d expect.

What holds Us Back

Just this week, Conwy County Councillors supported a proposal to profit from the installation of electric vehicle chargers in County owned and run car parks. This is great, there will be a slice of the profits from these facilities heading back into the County’s wallets BUT, why do we need a private firm to install these? Why not keep it all in house? If money was loaned to Conwy to pay for the installations then the County could keep ALL the profits, repay the loan and profit into the future.

It’s Time

We don’t have the power we need by ourselves to make the big changes, that power is still tightly held by Cardiff and Westminster. But those small changes we’ve started making show we have the willpower. Our voices and actions need to become the catalyst for the changes we desperately need. It’s time for governments to give us the tools we need to solve the problems they are unwilling or unable to fix.

The projects like Ynni Ogwen, your neighbours solar panels and your commitment to walk to work, school or the shops should give us hope that together we can achieve this seemingly impossible task. Alone I can scatter small raindrops of actions, together we can deliver the torrent of change.

David Wilkins is a community activist, Welsh Liberal Democrat, and Colwyn Bay Town Councillor

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5 comments

Amir

I never understood why in a country with so much rain, rivers and existing dams, hydroelectric is so underutilised. But I like to view waterfalls and they should be a last resort.

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Padi Phillips

Hydro-electric schemes are hardly a new thing in Cymru. The town of Castellnewydd Emlyn had a hydro-electric power scheme in 1903 powered by the flow of the Afon Teifi using a weir and a leet. It was small scale and supplied the town, but 1903 was quite early for anywhere to have electricity. There are plenty of places in Cymru where similar schemes could be implemented in a way that would have a low impact visually if sensitively designed.

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Padi Phillips

This kind of thinking needs to become part of our economic future. I can't for the life of me understand why the Welsh Government and local councils haven't promoted the community benefit society approach for the roll-out of genuinely high speed fibre broadband such as is the case in north Lancashire/southern Cumbria/south-western North Yorkshire with the B4RN company which offers symmetric gigabit fibre broadband at a very competitive rate and offers special social tariffs to those eligible. The only similar scheme in Cymru is that run by the residents of Michaelston-y-Fedw in between Cardiff and Newport. Not only does this kind of scheme bring together communities, it offers benefits of genuinely world standard gigabit internet connections at a price that the big players can't compete with in terms of service or cost (typically big name offerings are asymmetric with upload speeds about a tenth of download, and are usually around £20 a month more expensive for the fastest connection). Community benefit societies also build local resilience as well as often offering a small amount of employment locally, which as anyone who lives in a rural environment will know, even in small numbers these jobs provide significant boosts to the local economy which is boosted even further when local goods and services are purchased by those who hold those local jobs.

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Linda Jones

I agree small things can add up to bigger changes. However I don't understand why politicians here and in England bang on about climate change and car emissions but do nothing about the poor state of our public transport system. Cycling and walking everywhere is not an option for many but anyone can get on a bus. In Cardiff the bus service is dire. Its expensive, unreliable and infrequent. Owned by Cardiff Council and run like a third world service.

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Simon

The joy of playing our part in helping society meet, and succeed, in over coming the challenges of climate change has been lost. We need to find ways of injecting that back into our tasks to make the world a better place. But so too do we require a government in the Senedd, who has ambitious plans and the energy to deliver them. What is clear, looking at Welsh Labour, is the tiredness, the lack of interest in governing, the barrenness of ideas and the low level corruption which now fills their bickering little tribe. Wales needs a blast of energized people coming into the Senedd and, not only advocating for change, but making it happen. For me, that looks like individuals with creativity and a history of achievement behind them. People who imagine Wales with, fleets of hydrogen powered buses, high-speed north-south and east-west rail, train stations connected to tunnels to Ireland and communities sharing private vehicles. For me this looks like Wales with control of its own resources: where the Crown Estates are held by the citizens of Wales, where all the energy and mining and water and other natural resource projects make money for Wales - not the English King or foreign governments. With those profits being paid into a Sovereign Wealth Fund, so we can invest in ourselves and continue to grow our economy. All this is possible. But first we have to get rid the political parties who would see the perpetuation of the Westminster system. That includes Reform UK: for all their shouting about changing the UK they are still no more than the child in the playground with no friends, who for attention occasionally shouts abuse at others, but all the while longs to be invited to the cool kids parties - we saw this with Nigel Farage's eight attempts at getting into Westminster. He and his party of grifters are wannabes seeking to win approval of the big boys. We need to make Wales work. That means rejecting the short term wreck it strategy of populists. To get ourselves out of this hole, we need to get OURSELVES out of this hole! We can turn away from London, reject their way of conducting politics, make our own plans and create a nation that we, the citizens of Wales want and that benefits us - not them. If we take that approach and, with energy and boldness look out into the world, we will find friends, the investors and the political partners who will help Wales thrive. And once we get that particular ball rolling, be it: climate change policy, energy, transport, education or healthcare, their will be no stopping us. So lets give ourselves a kick up the backside, take a deep breath and find that extra energy to make our nation, the nation that we all want to see. A nation of ambition, bravery and creativity. A nation which shows its maturity and rises above the child's play of Westminster and populism.

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This kind of thinking needs to become part of our economic future. I can't for the life of me understand why the Welsh Government and local councils haven't promoted the community benefit society approach for the roll-out of genuinely high...

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