ENVIRONMENTAL campaigners from Sidmouth joined thousands of others across the world to highlight the need to reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

ENVIRONMENTAL campaigners from Sidmouth joined thousands of others across the world to highlight the need to reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Members of the town's Vision Group incorporated the magic number of 350, representative of what climate experts believe is the safe upper limit for CO2 in our atmosphere.

The group met on Saturday at 3.50pm on Sidmouth seafront with the aim of raising public awareness of the need for an international climate treaty.

Liz Bramley, Vision Group press officer, said: "Accelerating Arctic warming and other early climate impacts have led scientists to conclude that we are already above the safe zone at our current 390ppm(parts per million), and that unless we are able to rapidly return to 350 ppm this century, we risk reaching irreversible impacts such as the melting of the Greenland ice sheet and major methane releases from increased permafrost melt.