Cities around the world on Saturday evening turned out lights to mark the 10th annual Earth Hour, a global movement dedicated to protecting the planet and highlighting the effects of climate change.
As night fell, lights went out in cities from South Korea to the US in what the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) described as a moment of solidarity for climate action. The group, which sponsors the event, said people in 178 nations and territories had planned to participate.
Lights went out for the hour-long event — from 8:30pm to 9:30pm — in Beijing, Moscow, Beirut, Cairo, Athens, Rome and Paris. The lights atop the Empire State Building in New York were dimmed and some billboards in the city’s Times Square also went dark.
Photo: Reuters
In Seoul, the glass-covered City Hall was among several public buildings where officials switched off the lights inside and out. Lights illuminating landmarks such as the massive COEX shopping mall, the city’s main railway station and several bridges on the Han River were all either turned off or dimmed.
In Beijing, Chinese actress Li Bingbing (李冰冰) attended the iconic Temple of Confucius, which went dark for an hour while municipal government officials announced that the city’s energy conservation slogan would be: “Consume less, consume wisely.”
The Taipei 101 skyscraper was among the buildings to go dark in Taiwan’s capital.
Philippine officials in Metro Manila led hundreds of environmental activists, students, and movie and TV celebrities in switching off lights at the Quezon Memorial Circle in suburban Quezon City. Amid the darkness, some participants pedaled bamboo bikes attached to small energy generators to power LED lights and illuminate a giant map of the Philippines to symbolize the nation’s yearning to shift to renewable energy sources, organizers said.
The first Earth Hour event was held on March 31, 2007, when the WWF conservation group inspired people in Sydney to turn out lights for an hour.
Since then, the WWF-organized event has expanded to thousands of cities and towns around the world and has been held in March every year.
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