Rushen Commissioners are backing an environmental lobby calling for ’drastic climate action’.

The local authority has voted to join the Climate Change Coalition, after it was proposed by chairman David Radcliffe.

Commissioners in the southern authority say they are keen to assist the coalition in achieving its aims, which include investment in renewable energy, reduction in emissions, and to ’keep sustainability promises’ to Unesco, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation.

Rushen parish has embarked on two initiatives in recent months, including conversion of street lights to low-energy LEDS, and to work with the Department of Environment, Food and Agriculture to plant several thousand trees in the parish.