World Switches Off To Save Planet In "Earth Hour"
Date: 30-Mar-09
Country: AUSTRALIA
World Switches Off To Save Planet In
A combination picture shows the Sydney skyline before (top) and after the
lights were turned off for Earth Hour March 28, 2009.
Photo: Patrick Riviere
SYDNEY - Lights went out at tourism landmarks and homes across the globe on
Saturday for Earth Hour 2009, a global event designed to highlight the
threat from climate change.
From the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge to the Eiffel Tower in Paris
and London's Houses of Parliament, lights were dimmed as part of a campaign
to encourage people to cut energy use and curb greenhouse gas emissions from
fossil fuels.
Organisers said the action showed millions of people wanted governments to
work out a strong new UN deal to fight global warming by the end of 2009,
even though the global economic crisis has raised worries about the costs.
"We have been dreaming of a new climate deal for a long time," Kim
Carstensen, head of a global climate initiative at the conservation group
WWF, said in a candle-lit bar in the German city of Bonn, which hosts UN
climate talks between March 29 and April 8.
"Now we're no longer so alone with our dream. We're sharing it with all
these people switching off their lights," he said as delegates and activists
sipped bluish cocktails.
The UN Climate Panel says greenhouse gas emissions are warming the planet
and will lead to more floods, droughts, heatwaves, rising sea levels and
animal and plant extinctions.
World emissions have risen by about 70 percent since the 1970s. China has
recently overtaken the United States as the top emitter, ahead of the
European Union, Russia and India.
BILLION PEOPLE TAKE PART
The UN Climate Panel says rich nations will have to cut their emissions to a
level between 25 and 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 to avoid the worst
effects of warming. Developing nations will also have to slow the rise of
their emissions by 2020, it says.
Australia first held Earth Hour in 2007 and it went global in 2008,
attracting 50 million people, organisers say. WWF, which started the event,
is hoping one billion people from nearly 90 countries will take part.
"The primary reason we do it is because we want people to think, even if it
is for an hour, what they can do to lower their carbon footprint, and
ideally take that beyond the hour," Earth Hour executive director Andy
Ridley told reporters at Sydney's Bondi Beach.
In Asia, lights at landmarks in China, Singapore, Thailand and the
Philippines were dimmed as people celebrated with candle-lit picnics and
concerts.
Buildings in Singapore's business district went dark along with major
landmarks such as the Singapore Flyer, a giant observation wheel.
Other global landmarks that switched off their lights included the Petronas
Towers in Kuala Lumpur, the Reserve Bank in Mumbai, the dome of St Peter's
Basilica in Rome, Egypt's Great Pyramids and the Acropolis in Athens.
(Reporting by Reuters bureaux; Writing by Jon Boyle)
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