Lismore City Council last night voted to officially declare that the “world is in a state of climate emergency” joining at least 33 other local governments across Australia.

Cr Elly Bird put forward the multi-part motion which officially recognises the threat posed by climate change and commits the council to a raft of symbolic and procedural actions in response.

It followed a community access session during which five community members spoke in favour of the move, including several members the Lismore Extinction Rebellion group.

While addressing the motion, Cr Bird painted a nightmare future affected by rising sea levels and climate change.

In the next few decades, the number of extreme storms and severity and regularity of droughts and heat waves would increase, she said, which would impact on food production and access to clean, safe drinking water.

She said the effects were already beginning to be felt in extreme weather events across the world. Towns such as Tenterfield, Guyra, Armidale, Stanthorpe and Tamworth were running short of water. Others are already completely dry.

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“Since our own floods in 2017 I've been to a number of disaster conferences and I'm off to another one later this month - and I can tell you one thing,” she said.

“Everyone in the emergency management field knows that climate change is real, that it is happening, and they are scrambling to get ready for what is coming.”

Cr Bird said the world was undeniably heading for a future with significant changes - which was scary and overwhelming - but it wasn’t too late.

“We have a rapidly shrinking window to turn things around,” she said.

“Governments and societies need to take swift and decisive action to reduce emissions and shift energy use away from fossil fuels to renewables. And that's where we come in.

“This motion reinforces our commitment to our renewable energy target and our commitments to partnerships with emergency services to increase our community disaster preparedness.

“It's a first step by adopting this motion. Tonight we're taking action. We will look at what we're already doing.

“We'll have a conversation with our community and then together we will act.”

Crs Cook, Bird, Ekins, Smith, Moorhouse, Marks, Guise, Lloyd all voted in favour of the motion while Cr Battista voted against. Crs Casson and Bennett were not present at the meeting.