Earth Hour Celebrated Around The World
Iconic landmarks across the globe ranging from the Sydney Opera House, to the Kremlin and the Eiffel Tower all went dark for one hour on Saturday for the 10th edition of Earth Hour which is meant to act as a symbol for the people of the world to combat climate change. Millions of people from as many as 178 countries took part in Earth Hour this year. The event is organised by WWF who said many monuments and buildings such as the Empire State Building and the Brandenburg Gate were plunged into darkness for 60 minutes between 8:30 pm to 9:30 pm local time.
Started small
The annual event was initiated in Sydney which actually started the tradition in 2007. Earth Hour’s Australia manager Sam Webb said that to begin with it was just the Sydney Harbour Bridge that turned its lights off. Siddarth Das, Earth Hour’s global executive director says WWF is thrilled about how much the movement has grown since it first began nine years ago.
“From one city it has now grown to over 178 countries and territories and over 7,000 cities, so we couldn’t be happier about how millions of people across the world are coming together for climate action,” Mr. Das said.
Iconic buildings all over the world participated
In Singapore as many as 150 buildings took part and dimmed their lights, whilst in Taipei, 101 gradually turned its lights off as did the cities four historical gates and bridges. In Hong Kong, the lights which normally has a glittering skyline, the lights were also dimmed. After Asia, the action moved to Europe where St Peter’s Basilica, the Parthenon temple in Athens and Rome’s Tevi fountain joined a number of iconic sites in going off the grid. In London, the lights went out at the Houses of Parliament, the London Eye, Buckingham Palace, Harrods department store and St Paul’s Cathedral.
Climate change has become personal
Mr. Das said there was greater momentum towards taking action on climate change particularly following the talks in Paris last year. The Paris Agreement seeks to limit global warming to “well below” two degrees Celsius over pre industrial levels. According to Mr. Das people are now starting to feel the effects of climate change more so than when Earth Hour first began and that the topic has now become personal.
“I feel that there’s a renewed vigour among individuals and governments to come together for strong climate action and to fight climate change,” he said.