Wales at Copenhagen

It's news to us, but Wales apparently holds the chair of the 'Network of Regional Governments for Sustainable Development' with Jane Davidson able to be involved on the fringes of the Copenhagen Summit. A good article at Wales Home has alerted us to this, it's quite a coup for Wales to be leading this international alliance, though i'm sure even Jane Davidson doesn't want us to be a 'Regional Government' forever! It's a shame that this isn't common knowledge. The Welsh media has failed to report this pretty important body for Wales to be leading. Fair play to Wales Home for that contribution.

Yet it should be asked, why didn't the Labour Minister demand that Wales get a full say at the Summit like her Scottish counter-part did? I don't expect that Westminster would listen, but we would still have sent out a clear message and maybe given people a bit more confidence in the Welsh Government's ability to stand up for Wales.

So sadly we won't be heard at the heart of the summit, and indeed we are only at Copenhagen at all in our hard-fought devolved capacity. This is something of a response to whose who argue that devolution will 'cut Wales off from the rest of the world'.

It's a similar situation Labour's Finance Minister Andrew Davies did not sufficiently hold the UK Government to account over the cuts to the Welsh budget, when the Scottish Government was taking a much stronger line. At first Andrew Davies and Rhodri Morgan made some promising comments in the Chamber about fighting for Wales' interests, but when the massive real terms cuts to our funding were announced they tried to spin it as a 'good budget for Wales'. Even though Labour's Welsh Ministers are very agreeable with progressives in Wales on all the main policy issues, at the coal face of things they are more likely to defend Labour's interests than Wales' interest.

For what it's worth, the Copenhagen Summit will probably recommend a climate deal based on carbon trading and shifting the burden of guilt on to the rest of the world.

Still, you can't help think that we might get somewhere if Wales was entitled to more of a say than just being there as a 'Regional Government'.