Hustings at the Bridges Centre heated up the election trail with candidates putting forward their plans for tackling the climate emergency.

Last Friday saw a full-to-capacity event with the Monmouth electorate putting candidates through thier paces. A theme that ran through the evening was the United Kingdom’s impact on the wider world.Conservative Party candidate, David Davies argued that if there’s a noticeable reduction in people’s quality of life as a result of reducing our emissions, other countries will not look to us as an example. He suggested nuclear power to decarbonise without a reduction in the standard of living. Alison Willott said she wanted to see changes in how houses are developed, with geothermal on every housing estate and solar panels on every roof. She added: "We’re buying too much, we’re throwing away too much, we have to go back to the thrifty ideas." Plaid Cymru’s candidate, Hugh Kocan said that strong trade deals that work in the interest of the environment are a tool the UK needs to use to influence the rest of the world.Yvonne Murphy said that the UK should take some responsibility for countries that can’t or won’t reduce their carbon emissions, but added that all countries need to play their part.The Conservative Party’s target to decarbonise by 2050 was defended by David Davies, arguing that it’s achievable without negatively impacting the economy or putting people out of work. Mr Davies’ statement was challenged by an audience member asserting that his party’s Brexit plan has already put people out of work. Ian Chandler said that the country needs to bear some responsibility because it’s the UK that has created a lot of the current industries that are causing the problems today. An example he used was wind turbine factory on the Isle of Wight that went bust, "because the government couldn’t make up its mind on what its renewable energy policy was going to be." He added that Wales is also in a prime location to make the most of renewable energy.While most candidates were keen to lay criticisms at each other’s parties, either at Welsh Labour’s government in the assembly or the Conservative government in Westminster, Yvonne Murphy said: "I promised myself when I did this campaign that I wouldn’t run it on a negative basis and I wouldn’t do attack". "I’m not going to do it even though I’ve been pushed more tonight than any other night," she added A case for nuclear power was made by David Davies. He claimed that decarbonisation wasn’t possible without it.Ian Chandler challenged the point by saying that if the same money was put into renewables, the energy needed would be produced faster. He cited examples of how new technology could be used to store energy generated by renewables as well as emphasising the need to make gains in energy efficiency.Mr Davies said that nuclear must be considered an option, even if some find it difficult to tolerate. "An emergency is an emergency, we need emergency measures," he said."I’m not fundamentally in favour of nuclear, I find it rather expensive," he said, but added that it’s one of the "most sure-fire ways of getting enough energy onto the grid."Mr Chandler argued that "the whole economics of energy generation have changed", adding that it’s the people who are developing the power stations who are realising there’s no economic or financial future for it.The evening drew to a close with some pointed remarks made by David Davies about the leader of the Labour party, describing Jeremy Corbyn as "a man who’s not fit to hold office", "who is willing to associate with anti-Semites", "willing to say that Hamas and Hezbollah are friends of his" and "who is willing to take the IRA to tea in the house of commons".