Sydney kicked off Earth Hour with lights going out on the city’s landmarks on Saturday night, The Sydney Morning Herald reports. Commercial towers and apartment buildings went dark. City hotels, bars and restaurants dimmed down.
Last year, at the inaugural event in Sydney, more than 2.2million people and 2100 businesses got into the act. turned off the lights and non-essential appliances. The city’s energy consumption dipped by more than 10 percent.
From Australia, the initiative, which aims to engage the community in combating global warming, will see lights dimmed or turned off at 8:00 pm local time in Asian cities such as Bangkok and Manila, before spreading further to Europe and the Americas, AFP reports.
This year, 26 cities joined Earth Hour as official partner cites, including Atlanta, Bangkok, Chicago, Christchurch, Copenhagen, Dublin, Manila, Montreal, Odense, Ottawa, Phoenix, San Francisco, Tel Aviv and Toronto.
In the U.S., Earth Hour is being celebrated coast to coast including the flagship cities of Atlanta, GA; Chicago, IL, Phoenix, AZ; and San Francisco, CA; as well as supporting cities Charlotte, NC; Denver, CO; Honolulu, HI; Miami, FL; Minneapolis, MN; Pittsburgh, PA and St. Louis, MO and in smaller U.S. cities, such as Arlington, VA; Columbia, MO; Homer Glen, IL; La Grange, TX; and Norman, OK.
