Hong Kong will participate in this year's Earth Hour campaign later this month with a series of diversified activities, the Hong Kong branch of World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) said Thursday.
Ahead of the Earth Hour 2017, which will take place on March 25 at 8:30 p.m. local time, WWF-Hong Kong is launching a social media campaign called #EarthHourMoment, inviting the public to take selfies or photos of activity and actions when turning the lights off and share with friends and community on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter, with the hashtag #EarthHourMoment.
"Every day, every hour and every second could be Earth Hour," WWF-Hong Kong said in a statement, "You may take a photo of your lights off activity...You can even Tag your friends to lights off with you. That would finally target to encourage everyone to adopt an environmentally-friendly and smart lifestyle."
Besides the online campaign, there will be a tram parade on the afternoon of March 25, with the Earth Hour youth ambassador on the tram publicizing the campaign along a route across one of the busiest parts of Hong Kong.
There will also be a countdown event right before the lights-out hour besides the Victoria Harbor, allowing citizens to witness the moment when lights in buildings on both sides of the famous harbor are turn off simultaneously.
The Earth Hour campaign was launched by the WWF to encourage individuals, commercial buildings and government offices to turn off lights for one hour in order to send a message for the protection of the environment.
Last year's event was participated by 178 countries and regions, over 7,000 cities and more than 400 globally well-known landmark buildings.
This year will be the ninth time for Hong Kong to take part in the event. Last year, over 4,100 companies' offices, 230 primary and secondary schools and multiple landmark buildings turned off their lights during the hour.
WWF-Hong Kong said it hopes to further promote the development of renewable energies, such as solar energy, in Hong Kong through this year's Earth Hour campaign.
"Hong Kong has outstanding conditions to comprehensively develop solar energy," said C.W. Cheung, assistant director for climate and energy of WWF-Hong Kong, "This will help Hong Kong become a low-carbon metropolis with sustainability."
