One thousand businesses have signed up in the biggest climate change awareness blackout ever attempted

Credit: WWF/Sydney Morning Herald

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SYDNEY: Australia's largest city will be plunged into darkness for an hour on Saturday in a world first blackout to raise awareness of global warming.

The lights will go out in landmark headquarters buildings in Sydney's central business district, on the iconic Harbour Bridge and Opera House, and in tens of thousands of suburban homes.

If the switch-off is successful then it could be copied by major cities around the world in a symbolic drive to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions blamed for climate change, according to international conservation group WWF.

"Earth Hour", which begins at 7:30pm Sydney time (9:30am GMT) on March 31, has been planned for 10 months by WWF in partnership with the city authorities, businesses and a major newspaper group.

"We've been astounded at the level of support we've got," said Andy Ridley of WWF Australia in Sydney.

A thousand businesses have signed up, including many of the top blue-chip companies on the Australian stock market - and even McDonald's is going to turn off its "Golden Arches" signs, he said.

"The first commitment is lights off for an hour, and then as we go forward we're looking to try and set ourselves a target of reducing emissions by five per cent over the next year."

Research has linked global temperature increases to the greenhouse effect, in which gases emitted by burning fossil fuels trap heat in the atmosphere (see Global warming is our fault, Cosmos Online).

Last month Paris conducted a similar campaign, dimming lights for five minutes in the French capital and turning off the lights of the Eiffel Tower.

Twenty-seven thousand Sydney households have also registered their support online - but many times that number are expected to participate in the blackout. The only lights deliberately left on will be those connected with public safety, such as streetlights.

Top restaurants have signed up and will serve diners by candlelight, with some offering meals using local produce rather than ingredients flown or shipped in from abroad. "We're not asking people to go and live in a cave and eat cold beans; that can't be the way we approach the problem of global warming," Ridley said, dismissing some early criticism that business would suffer.

"The idea of this is there are simple things that are putting emissions up into the air and we can do simple things to start cutting back on them, but that doesn't mean you close your restaurant."

Ridley said that if successful, the Sydney blackout would be a world first. "I think people have tried it before, but nobody has successfully done it and I don't think anyone has tried it on the scale we are trying. "If it's as successful as we hope, we hope to take it around the world and do this in every major city we can get to join us."

Australia, already the driest inhabited continent on earth, is expected to be particularly hard hit by global warming (see Australia's drought may stay for keeps, Cosmos Online).

Read more about Earth Hour at http://earthhour.smh.com.au/.