Lights out for global warming
2007-04-02 07:15
Sydney - Organisers behind a campaign that saw Sydney impose a one-hour blackout to raise awareness of global warming hailed it as a success for taking the equivalent of nearly 50 000 cars off the road.
Energy Australia said the event - which saw the lights switched off on the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House and in 65 000 homes and 2 000 businesses - had cut normal energy use by an estimated 10.2%.
Sydney switched off at 7:30 pm on Saturday (09:30 GMT) as residents and firms joined "Earth Hour" to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The World Wildlife Fund (WWF), which organised what it called a world first event, said discussions would now take place to take the concept national.
"We would have thought about a five percent reduction would have been a good result, but we've seen a reduction of over 10%," a spokesperson for Energy Australia said. "That's a tremendous result."
"What people would have learnt from this is that energy efficiency is quite simple - it's as simple as flicking a switch."
Giving comparisons, Energy Australia said that the 25 000 tons of carbon dioxide saved was equivalent to taking 48 613 cars off the road for an hour.
The saving of more than 20 000 kilowatt hours of energy was enough to power 200 000 televisions for 60 minutes, it added.
A spokesperson for WWF said it was "desperately happy and relieved".
"We set out to prove the fact that individual action collectively looks like this," she told Australian Associated Press.
"On a range of environmental actions that we need to take - energy efficiency and water efficiency - individual action is the key, and this has shown what it can do. It's pretty spectacular when you get to prove that."
Scientists link dangerous increases in global temperature to the greenhouse effect, in which gases emitted by burning fossil fuels to produce energy trap heat in the atmosphere.