Gloucestershire County Council will cut huge chunk of its carbon emissions by 2030 after councillors backed proposals today.

The call, to reduce 80 per cent of the county council’s emissions within 11 years, was unanimously backed by county councillors at a meeting today, as well as “striving” to offset the remaining 20 per cent by the same date.

Activist group Extinction Rebellion, which was at the meeting, said the pledge “still does not go far enough”.

The group’s members were hoping to cause disruption for the third time in three months by tabling a series of public questions about the climate and green issues.

At February’s meeting, protesters caused huge disruption when they superglued themselves to the public benches inside the council chamber and positioned themselves on the chairman’s bench.

Officers from Gloucestershire Constabulary were based in a room next door watching a live stream of the council meeting to ensure “no breaches of peace took place”.

The authority will now review how to cut its carbon emissions in council-owned buildings and consider the environment further in current and future strategies.

Properties owned by the authority, such as Shire Hall in Westgate Street, Gloucester, street lighting and traffic signals are producing some of the emissions which could be tackled in the county.

The county council will now attempt to deliver a carbon neutral county by 2050.

The authority will also call on the Government to provide additional powers and resources to achieve an 80 per cent reduction in carbon emissions by 2030.

As it stands, the county council is on track to reduce 60 per cent of corporate carbon emissions by 2020, as set out in 2006.

And councillors unanimously backed a proposal to show committees how it will achieve the county council’s 2030 carbon neutral target on a quarterly basis.

Liberal Democrat councillor Iain Dobie (Leckhampton and Warden Hill) said he was disappointed a “climate emergency wasn’t formally declared”.

A Conservative amendment to the motion, which was passed by a majority of 16, welcomes the declaration of a climate change emergency “by parliament on behalf of the UK”.

But Mr Dobie added, “there was a lot of goodwill between the lines”.

Green leader Rachel Smith (Minchinhampton), who proposed amendments which were unanimously backed, said: “I am really pleased to say we have made a significant step today, and I think it really shows how important it is to have Greens at the table.”

Speaking after the meeting, Extinction Rebellion activist Ben Misrahi said they “won’t give up”.

He said: “We’ll definitely be back again. We need to put the pressure on the county council to get the target moved up to at least 2025. Although it is 2025, we need to be talking much sooner than that.”