Earth Hour

Earth Hour is an international event that asks households and businesses to turn off their lights and non-essential electrical appliances for one hour on the evening of March 29th at 8PM local time to promote electricity conservation and thus lower carbon emissions.

It is promoted by World Wide Fund for Nature Australia (WWF), an environmental lobby group, and the Sydney Morning Herald. The first Earth Hour was held in Sydney, Australia between 7:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. on 31 March 2007. The 2007 Earth Hour is estimated to have cut Sydney's mains electricity consumption by between 2.1% and 10.2% for that hour, with as many as 2.2 million people taking part. A second Earth Hour, in 2008, is planned to be an international event held in Sydney, many partner cities, and individuals around the world participating.

Origins
Earth Hour, under the working title 'the big flick', was conceived by members of WWF-Australia's communication team in December 2005 as a possible campaign to engage all parts of the Australian community on the need to address climate change.

A partnership was formed in August 2006 between WWF-Australia's Andy Ridley, Leo Burnett's Nigel Marsh and Fairfax Media's Phil McLean with a planned campaign date of early 2007. Earth Hour was launched publicly as a Sydney-only event on December 16 2006 by Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore and took place at 7.30pm on March 31 2007.

Following significant interest from both inside Australia and around the world, Earth Hour was formed into a non-profit entity owned by WWF-Australia, Leo Burnett and Fairfax Media. The decision was taken to make Earth Hour an open source model, allowing any genuinely interested individual, company, media or government anywhere in the world to adopt the campaign for 2008.

Earth Hour 2007
The 2007 Earth Hour was part of a wider awareness campaign that aimed to reduce Sydney's carbon emissions by 5%. 68,506 individuals and 2,270 businesses registered their intention to participate on the Earth Hour website. Energy Australia, a utility, attributed a 10.2% decrease in consumption during the hour to the campaign. A poll of about 1000 people conducted afterwards suggested that 57% of Sydneysiders participated – some 2.2 million people.

Earth Hour 2008
Strong backing from the City of Sydney and its Lord Mayor, Clover Moore, helped to make Earth Hour 2008 an international event.

As of 24 March, over 11,900 businesses and 188,000 individuals had indicated their intention to participate at www.earthhour.org

Earth Hour 2008 will include the following "partner cities"

Asia and the Pacific

• Lautoka, Fiji
• Suva, Fiji
• Adelaide, Australia
• Brisbane, Australia
• Canberra, Australia
• Melbourne, Australia
• Perth, Australia
• Sydney, Australia
• Christchurch, New Zealand
• Bangkok, Thailand
• Manila, Philippines
• Dubai, UAE
• Tel Aviv, Israel

Europe

• Århus, Denmark
• Aalborg, Denmark
• Copenhagen, Denmark
• Odense, Denmark
• Timişoara, Romania
• Exeter, England
• Dublin, Ireland

North America

• Atlanta, United States
• Saginaw, United States
• Chicago, United States
• Miami, United States
• Phoenix, United States
• San Francisco, United States
• Halifax, Canada
• Montreal, Canada
• Ottawa, Canada
• St. John's, Canada
• Toronto, Canada
• Vancouver, Canada
• Edmonton, Canada

Prior to 2008, San Francisco had been running a Lights Out program of their own that occurred in October. For 2008 it was being moved to March 29th to align with Australia's Earth Hour. This also happen to be the year that Earth Hour became an international event and San Francisco was asked to be a partner city in Earth Hour. Rather than have a competing event, San Francisco is supporting Earth Hour and all Lights Out efforts will now move to supporting the international Earth Hour event.

Indonesia, let's be part of this!