SPAIN’S new government declared a national climate emergency today, taking a formal first step towards enacting ambitious measures to fight climate change.

The declaration approved by the Cabinet states that the socialist government will send its proposed climate legislation to parliament within 100 days.

The targets coincide with those of the EU, including a reduction of net carbon emissions to zero by 2050.

Spain’s coalition government wants up to 95 per cent of the Mediterranean country’s electricity to come from renewable sources by 2040.

The plan also foresees eliminating pollution by buses and lorries and making farming carbon neutral.

Details of the plan are set to be made public when the proposed legislation is sent to parliament for approval.

More than two dozen countries and scores of local and regional authorities have declared a climate emergency in recent years.

Scientists say that the last decade was by far the hottest ever measured on Earth, capped off by the second-warmest year on record.

Also today, young climate activists including Greta Thunberg told the elites gathered at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland they are not doing enough to deal with the climate emergency and warned them that time was running out.

“We need to start listening to the science and treat this crisis with the importance it deserves,” said the 17-year-old, just as US President Donald Trump was arriving in Davos.

“Without treating it as a real crisis we cannot solve it,” Greta said, adding that it was time to stop burning fossil fuels immediately, not decades from now.