UAE CITIES TO TAKE PART IN WWF EARTH HOUR

By Muin Abdul Majid

DUBAI, Dec 11 (Bernama) -- Several cities in the United Arab Emirates (UAE)
like Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Fujairah and Sharjah will join other cities around the
world in switching off lights for World Wide Fund for Nature's (WWF) Earth Hour
in March 2009.

The campaign, which hopes to reach out to more than one billion people in
1,000 cities on the globe, asks individuals, businesses and governments to
switch off lights for one hour from 8.30pm on March 28, to create a platform of
support for action on climate change.

Icons switching off include Dubai's Burj Al Arab hotel and the
under-construction Burj Dubai, the CN Tower in Toronto, Moscow's Federation
Tower, Auckland's Sky Tower, Australia's iconic sails of the Sydney Opera House
and the Table Mountain in Cape Town.

WWF International director-general Jim Leape said when leaders gathered in
Copenhagen in December 2009 to negotiate a new deal on the climate, they must
feel that the eyes of the world were upon them.

"Earth Hour provides an opportunity for the public to send a powerful
signal
that they are watching and expect action," he said, according to a WWF
statement.

The lights-out initiative, which began in Sydney in 2007 as a public
awareness-raising campaign, has grown significantly over the past two years and
now has 74 cities ready to flick the switch in 2009.

Earth Hour Global executive director Andy Ridley said recent events had
shown that the world could unite in a time of crisis.

"The global economic crunch is an example where, when it matters, decisive
multi-lateral action by powerful nations has been shown to be achievable," he
said.

-- BERNAMA