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The University of Bristol has become the first in the country to declare a climate emergency.

It follows a raft of organisations and local authorities, including the city council and North Somerset Council, across the UK in taking the step.

Deputy vice-chancellor and provost Professor Judith Squires said the declaration reaffirmed the institution’s “key role” in fighting climate change.

She said: “It does this through its research, its teaching and how it operates.

“Calling a climate emergency highlights the urgency of the task we are engaged in and I hope others join us in increasing their action on this, the biggest challenge we face.”

The university has pledged to become carbon neutral by 2030, a promise that was followed by Bristol City Council.

It says has reduced carbon emissions by 27 per cent since 2005 and is on target to achieve the ambition.

In March, 2018, the institution announced plans to divest completely from all investments in fossil fuel companies by next year.

The emergency declaration comes after world-leading climate experts in its Cabot Institute for the Environment co-wrote a major report last October warning of the devastating consequences of a 1.5C rise in global temperatures, including an increase in heat-related deaths, extreme food and water shortages and more severe weather.

It follows a letter to the vice-chancellor signed by about 100 academics and a 500-name petition from students at Monday’s university senate meeting.

Dr Laura Dickinson, from the department of civil engineering, who signed the letter, said: “Declaring a climate and ecological emergency sends the clear message that students and staff know that we must take radical action now.”

She said that included how the university taught and researched the crisis, how it was run and putting pressure on the Government to act “decisively and urgently”.

Biology student Giles Atkinson, who led the petition, said: “Universities have an opportunity in being leaders to the response to climate change.

“This declaration will help communicate the urgency of the situation and inspire further action.

“We hope other universities follow suit.”

Cabot Institute acting director Professor Dale Southerton said: “Our academics at the Cabot Institute for the Environment are working at the forefront of climate change research looking at all aspects of our changing planet from land, sea, ice, and air — from the wilderness to the cities, human to the physical, from local to global and from the ancient past to the future.

“We understand how important it is for the university to declare a climate emergency because we work on these issues on a daily basis and understand not only their complexity but also the urgency in addressing them.

“As a result of this urgency, we have recently launched a unique new masters by research in global environmental challenges, so we can train the next generation of researchers to take an interdisciplinary approach to the most complex environmental challenges of today while supporting them to become future thought-leaders in their field.”

Bristol University school of geographical sciences lecturer in climate change Dr Dann Mitchell added: “Climate science is now mature enough that we do not just count climate change in terms of degrees of additional warming, we count it in terms of human lives lost, biodiversity reduced, and land claimed by the oceans.”