Top world cities go dark for Earth Hour

SYDNEY — From Sydney’s Opera House to New York’s Empire State Building and Paris’s Eiffel tower, landmarks worldwide dimmed their lights on Saturday for the 10th edition of the Earth Hour campaign against climate change. Millions of people from 178 countries and territories were expected to take part in WWF’s Earth Hour this year, organizers said, with monuments and buildings such as Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate plunging into darkness for 60 minutes from 8:30 pm local time. The annual event kicked off in Sydney, where the Earth Hour idea originated in 2007. “We just saw the Sydney Harbour Bridge switch its lights off... and buildings around as well,” Earth Hour’s Australia manager Sam Webb told AFP from The Rocks area. Earth Hour’s global executive director Siddarth Das said organizers were excited about how much the movement had grown since it 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,” he tsaid from Singapore ahead of the lights out. Over 150 buildings in Singapore dimmed their lights, while Taipei’s 101 skyscraper gradually turned lights off for one hour and the city’s four historical gates and bridges also went dark. The lights also dimmed across Hong Kong’s usually glittering skyline, although online commentators pointed out that China’s People’s Liberation Army garrison headquarters on the harbor front kept the lights blazing. “Imagine being the manager of the only building in a major metropolis to forget,” said one Twitter post alongside a picture of the PLA building lit up against a darkened skyline. After Asia, Earth Hour shifted to Europe where St Peter’s Basilica, Rome’s Trevi Fountain and the Parthenon temple in Athens were among a slew of iconic sites to go off-grid. — AFP