Earth Hour was founded by WWF in Sydney in 2007, and is created to increase awareness about energy consumption and environmental issues including rising temperatures and destruction of habitats on a global scale.
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Eskom called on South Africans to switch off for Earth Hour and would celebrate this hour by using its power to showcase its contribution to South Africa’s journey in meeting sustainable development goals, the electricity parastatal said.
Landmarks from the Eifel Tower in Paris to the Empire State Building in NY to the Sydney Opera House will shut off their lights from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m. local time on Saturday.
This year’s Earth Hour switch-off event will be held on Saturday night, from 8:30 p.m.to 9:30 p.m., with the celebration focusing on the youth’s role as future climate leaders.
The Earth Hour campaign anchors on the simple action of turning off lights for 60 minutes to deliver a symbolic message of shining a light on climate action.
The UN said hundreds of landmarks – from NY to Uganda and Sweden to Malaysia – would be turning off on the night of Earth Hour.
According to the organisers, “Earth Hour shows how each of us can be heroes for our planet”. “People suffer from climate change and people are ultimately going to solve climate change”.
Numerous world’s most famous landmarks were plunged into darkness on Saturday night to mark Earth Hour, a global campaign to highlight climate change. “We are happy because we are able to engage the youth as well”, World Wildlife Fund Philippines president Joel Palma.
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Last year, WWF reported a record participation by 178 countries and territories, more than 6,600 registered events and 1.23 million individual actions to help change climate change.
