Ahead ofthe 25th March 2023 at 8.30pm local time, WWF’s Earth Hour is calling on individuals, communities, and businesses across the world to switch off their lights and Give an Hour for Earth, spending 60 minutes doing something positive for our planet.
As landmarks and homes across the planet take part in Earth Hour’s iconic switch off moment, people around the globe will be ‘switching off’ themselves by taking a break from their routine and everyday distractions, before deciding what they themselves can do to restore our one home. Whether that’s by cleaning up the beach, planting trees, cooking dinner with sustainable ingredients, or getting friends together for an Earth Hour event, anyone, anywhere is invited to join the Biggest Hour For Earth.
Supporters in over 190 countries including Dominica and other territories will thereby create the Biggest Hour for Earth, part of WWF’s efforts to turn a single Earth Hour into thousands and millions of hours of action and awareness. In doing so, the world’s largest grassroots environmental campaign will shine an unmissable global spotlight on the twin perils of nature loss and climate change. At the same time, this year’s Earth Hour will also serve as a powerful reminder of the importance of our planet, the need to protect it, and how little time we have to do so.
Earth Hour 2023 comes hot on the heels of the historic Kunming-Montreal Agreement at COP15, which in December last year committed the world to halting and reversing biodiversity loss by 2030. The next seven years are therefore crucial, for ensuring that the decade ends with more nature and biodiversity than when it began, not less, and that we stay under the 1.5°C climate threshold needed to avoid irreversible damage to our planet. Earth Hour is therefore needed more than ever, to inspire millions more to act, and make millions more take notice.
Already countries across the world are gearing up for this year’s Earth Hour 2023, with hundreds of local celebrity influencers set to show their support for ‘The Biggest Hour’, alongside a number of events set to take place on the 25th March. WWF-Mongolia will this year host a sustainable fashion show that is set to take place with local fashion designers, featuring upcycled redesigned clothes. Meanwhile, WWF-Latvia will once again host its traditional Earth Hour concert alongside several nature hikes with its partners and supporters.
The Earth Hour observation on island will again be led by the National Development Foundation of Dominica (NDFD) for the third time since the NDFD initiated the local participation in 2021. The NDFD will host a hybrid panel discussion starting from 7.00pm with the theme, “Environmentally Conscious Solutions for Small Businesses in Dominica”, with experts in six (6) thematic areas namely: Renewable Energy, Energy Efficiency, Waste Management, Recycling, Water Management, and Sustainable Agriculture joining the discussion. Interested individuals can attend the panel discussion at the NDFD’s Conference Room after reserving their slots. They can also opt to view it via the Social Media pages of the NDFD. From 8.30pm, the NDFD will open the virtual discussion to any person or organization which would like to zoom in and show to the public what specific environmentally friendly activities they decided to do during Earth Hour. Meeting details can be found in the NDFD’s social media pages.
The local observation of Earth Hour and the Panel Discussion that will precede it are just two of several promotional and educational fringe events which the NDFD has been organizing that lead up to the Green Innovations Summit this June.