Denbighshire County Council has declared a climate emergency.

Members of the council voted on a motion to declare humanity under threat from a global catastrophe of its own making, following the call from 16-year-old activist Greta Thunberg.

The Swedish teenager has been nominated for a Nobel prize as she lead a series of school strikes calling on politicians to act over climate change and called on governments to declare a climate emergency.

Independent, Labour and Plaid Cymru councillors worked together to put the motion before today’s meeting of the full council.

It commits the council to becoming net carbon zero by 2030 at the latest and requires it to set up a task and finish group to draw up a clear plan within six months to achieve that goal.

It also called on  the Welsh Government and UK Government to provide assistance and resources to help the council to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and enhance biodiversity.

Labour’s Cllr Graham Timms said: “Councillors will have noticed that this has three names rather than a political group on the motion. This has been put forward as individual councillors because it’s too important an issue to start playing political games with. It’s not the sort of issue I think people want to identify with a specific party.”

He added: “In recent times we have had our collective conscious pricked by groups like Friends of the Earth and Extinction Rebellion which is a groundswell of young people, in the main, saying it’s time to do something drastic. We cannot keep on going as we are.”

Plaid Cymru’s Cllr Mabon ap Gwynfor said: “As we are talking here there are dozens of children on stage in Llangollen declaring to the world that we are facing a climate crisis. We are discussing their future here, there is a responsibility on us to think of future generations and it’s interesting that it is young people who  have been leading on this.”

They also received the backing of Denbigh’s Cllr Mark Young.

He said: “We need leadership on this now. In the long-term we need our government to  make all the public sector buy electric cars and vehicles.

“And in the short-term they could make all 30mph zones in  residential areas into 20mph zones. Another action that we can take and we are looking at would be to ban single use plastics in our council buildings. We need action not words.”

The motion was backed unanimously by members of the council.