Earth Hour may now be taken global, say WWF

Credit: WWF/Sydney Morning Herald

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SYDNEY: Organisers behind a one-hour global warming awareness blackout hailed it as a success for taking the equivalent of nearly 50,000 cars off the road.

Energy Australia said the event - which saw the lights switched off on the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House and in at least 65,000 homes and 2,000 businesses - had cut normal energy use by an estimated 10.2 per cent.

Sydney partially switched off at 7:30pm Saturday (9:30am GMT) as residents and firms joined "Earth Hour" to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (See, Sydney aims for climate change blackout, Cosmos Online).

Though the city was not plunged into complete darkness, an incredible 2.2 million people - half of all Sydneysiders – may have switched off their lights, according to a Sydney Morning Herald poll.

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF), which organised what it called a "world first event", said discussions would now take place to take the concept national – perhaps even global.

"We would have thought about a five per cent reduction would have been a good result, but we've seen a reduction of over 10 per cent," a spokesman for Energy Australia spokesman said. "That's a tremendous result."

"What people would have learnt from this is that energy efficiency is quite simple - it's as simple as flicking a switch."

Giving comparisons, Energy Australia said that the 25,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide saved was equivalent to taking 48,613 cars off the road for an hour.

The saving of more than 20,000 kilowatt hours of energy was enough to power 200,000 televisions for 60 minutes, it added.

A spokeswoman for WWF said it was "desperately happy and relieved."

"We set out to prove the fact that individual action collectively looks like this," she said.

"On a range of environmental actions that we need to take - energy efficiency and water efficiency - individual action is the key, and this has shown what it can do. It's pretty spectacular when you get to prove that."

Organisers say there are a number of simple steps people can take to more regularly reduce electricity use, including unplugging appliances such as televisions, microwave ovens and stereos that are normally left on standby.

Other suggestions include switching to fluorescent light bulbs - a move the Australian government committed to earlier this year - and using "green" power sources such as solar.

More information:

See pictures of Earth Hour on photo-sharing web site, Flickr.