KEY POINTS:
An Auckland hotel will be lit for an hour this Saturday with thousands of biodegradable candles while for parts of Christchurch it will be lights off.
The moves will be part of Earth Hour, a global movement to raise awareness of climate change.
Initiated by WWF (World Wide
Fund for Nature) it aims to show that small actions, like switching off a light, can together add up to a big difference in the fight against climate change.
People in 24 cities around the world plan to switch out their lights and turn off their appliances from standby from 8pm to 9pm on Saturday.
The Langham five star hotel in Symonds St will switch off about 3000 lights to be replaced by chemical free and non-toxic New Zealand-made soy candles.
The hotel would also be serving complimentary carbon-zero wine and canapes made from sustainable and locally grown ingredients.
Langham managing director John Dick said the hotel wanted to show it was committed to environmental sustainability.
"We still have a long way to go and this is just the beginning," he said.
Christchurch would be the first New Zealand city to commit to Earth Hour but WWF invited all New Zealanders to turn off their lights for a time.
The southern city aimed to reduce its carbon emissions by 5 per cent in the first year after Earth Hour, with Environment Canterbury stating that Christchurch's energy consumption had increased by 2 per cent each year since 1982.
Restaurants and bars around Christchurch would hold candlelit Earth Hour events while Orion New Zealand planned to monitor the city's power use during Earth Hour to measure how much electricity was saved.
There would be acoustic music events in Christchurch on the night of Earth Hour, along with community-run events around the city.
Earth Hour was pioneered in Sydney on March 31 last year, when 2.2 million Sydney residents turned their lights off and 2100 businesses signed up to start reducing their emissions by 5 per cent.
This collective effort reduced Sydney's energy consumption by 10.2 per cent, the equivalent of taking 48,000 cars off the road.
Many iconic landmarks around the world would have their lights turned off this Saturday, including Sydney's Harbour Bridge and Opera House, San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge, and the 110-storey Sears Tower in Chicago, the tallest building in North America.
* CITIES IN EARTH HOUR 2008
1. CHRISTCHURCH, NZ
2. Melbourne, Australia
3. Chicago, USA
4. Toronto, Canada
5. Tel Aviv, Israel
6. Copenhagen, Denmark
7. Manila, Philippines
8. Suva, Fiji
9. Aarhus, Denmark
10. Brisbane, Australia
11. Aalborg, Denmark
12. Sydney, Australia
13. Perth, Australia
14. Odense, Denmark
15. Canberra, Australia
16. San Francisco, USA
17. Adelaide, Australia
18. Phoenix, USA
19. Atlanta, USA
20. Bangkok, Thailand
21. Ottawa, Canada
22. Vancouver, Canada
23. Montreal, Canada
24. Dublin, Ireland
* WORK TO BE DONE
New Zealand's greenhouse gas emissions increased by 25 per cent between 1990 and 2005.
The country ranks 12th in the world for greenhouse gas emissions per head of population.
Total consumer energy demand in New Zealand increased by 21 per cent between 1995 and 2005.
The energy sector in New Zealand produced 43 per cent of total New Zealand greenhouse gas emissions in 2005.
In 2005, fossil fuels (coal and gas) provided 34 per cent of New Zealand's total electricity generation, up from 27 per cent in 2004.
- Sourced from Ministry for the Environment
