Europe News

Lights out! Sydney's Opera, Big Ben, Empire State building

Mar 28, 2010, 17:35 GMT

St Stephen\'s Clock Tower, commonly known as \'Big Ben\', falls into darkness as the Houses of Parliament in London becomes one of the many global landmarks to be plunged into darkness. EPA/GEOFF CADDICK

   Washington - As Earth turned and clocks clicked to 8:30 pm, lights went dark on the world's monuments: the Sydney Opera House, London's Big Ben, New York's Empire State building.

   At the end of Saturday's fourth annual Earth Hour, aimed at raising consciousness about global warming, more than 4,000 cities in 126 countries had participated, shutting off lights for up to one hour.

   Beijing doused lights at the Forbidden City; Dubai, on the world's tallest building, the 828-metre-high Burj Khalifa; Athens, on the Acropolis; and Paris, fleetingly on the Eiffel Tower.

   In Berlin, Christine Kolmar of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF,) helped turn off the switch at the Brandenburg Gate.

   'We want to send a signal to protect the climate and show that every one of us can do something,' Kolmar said. 'But we also demand that the governments do more against climate change.'

   Hundreds of people gathered at the gate. Passersby used one of the three bicycles to power dynamos and light up the Berlin Bear and WWF panda bear symbols.

   Munich, Dresden, Cologne and Heidelberg participated among the 35 darkened cities in Germany.

   The action started in the Chatham Islands, about 800 kilometres east of New Zealand, where 600 residents shut off their diesel generators.

   While New Zealanders appeared less interested in Earth Hour this year than last, they still shut off their lights and reduced power consumption by 2 per cent, the national grid operator Transpower said. Last year it was a 3.5 per cent drop.

   Taiwan shut off the lights on the world's second tallest building, the 508-metre Taipei 101, and other major skyscrapers. In Taichung, Taiwan's second-largest city, thousands of people gathered at the central square to join in the countdown for the Earth Hour lights out.

   'This is the fourth year we have joined the Earth Hour event. By turning off lights for one hour, Taiwan can cut 1.7 million tons of carbon dioxide emission,' Wu Chia-ling, of the Society of Wilderness, told reporters.

   The French capital darkened 240 buildings and monuments for an hour, including Notre Dame, a bridge over the River Seine, the Opera Garnier, Place de la Concorde, and the Elysee Palace.

   At the Eiffel Tower the lights were only switched off for five minutes, but 1,600 candles forming the numeral 60 were instead lit at the foot of the monument for 60 minutes on the Champs de Mars.

   In Washington DC, target of global criticism for its slow action on reducing carbon emissions, lighting was turned out on the National Cathedral. Darkness was to cloak Seattle's Space Needle and San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge as 8:30 pm moved westward.

   Earth Hour 2010 comes five months after world leaders meeting in Copenhagen failed to agree on concerted action to slow the emission of the greenhouse gases that cause climate change.

   Earth Hour executive director Andy Ridley said the Copenhagen fiasco had not dampened desire for multilateral action to reduce emissions.

   'After Copenhagen we were really fearful that Earth Hour would die, that people would be fatigued with climate change, but the opposite has happened,' he said. 'The uptake has been phenomenal.'

   Ridley, who claims 1 billion Earth Hour participants in more than 125 countries, said the importance was not electricity saved but issues raised.

   An antidote to Earth Hour 2010 is Human Achievement Hour, an initiative of climate change sceptics like Cory Bernardi, a member of parliament for the opposition Liberal Party.

   His supporters planned to turn up their energy use during Earth Hour to demonstrate their disdain for the idea that Earth's climate is warming up due to carbon emissions.