Leading councillors in Allerdale have resisted fresh demands from environmental campaigners to declare a ‘climate emergency’

Members already made a pledge to tackle the issue in September but stopped short of following the example set by more than 200 councils across the UK.

But this week the authority has come under renewed pressure to make a firmer commitment to help tackle the global crisis.

Rather than committing immediately to make the promise, the council voted instead to have its overview and scrutiny panel look to come back with an action plan.

And in the same week that teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg blasted world leaders for their inaction, two 15-year-old students from Cockermouth pressed the council to do more to “recognise the urgency of the situation”.

Isabella Bridgman and Clare Rodger, who attend Cockermouth School, presented a 1,300-signature petition urging members to commit making the borough carbon neutral by 2030.

They told the council that they were living in a “time of crisis” and that “more must be done to secure our futures”.

The pair also talked of “rising sea levels”, adding that “extreme weather events” were happening more frequently as a result of man-made climate change.

The students received a round of applause and were told they were a “credit” to their school, but the council nevertheless refused to reverse its original decision.

Council leader Marion Fitzgerald said local authorities “can’t carry the full burden alone” but reassured the pair that “positive steps” were being taken.

She also asked that the petition be shared with the council’s climate change task and finish group to inform their work.

Coun Sally Lansbury, who raised the original climate change motion, told members it was not “too late” to make the declaration, adding that she “did not understand the council’s resistance”.

But Coun Alan Pitcher said the approach already agreed would help the authority come up with a “proper plan”, recruiting help and advice from outside agencies, as “opposed to doing the proverbial like chickens with no heads.”

The meeting also heard from Julia Robinson, an activist for Climate Emergency West Cumbria (CEWC), who warned of the spiralling financial, human and environmental costs of what she described as an “insufficient response” to the crisis.

Mrs Fitzgerald agreed that the reduction of carbon emissions is an “urgent and pressing need” for the council, the country and, the planet.

Buts also said that there had been a “real concern” that if the council had agreed to take action on the basis of a half-hour public debate that this “might be as far as it ever got”.

Her comments come after neighbouring borough councillors in Copeland pledged to tackle climate change but warned too of the perils of being “rushed into” making environmental pledges they were unable to keep.

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