With just three years until the Kyoto Protocol agreements expire, moves are now afoot for national governments around the world to agree to a new environmental treaty. Following 2007’s United Nations Climate Change Conferences Bali, the Climate Conference in Copenhagen will play a key role in establishing the new Copenhagen Protocol. Representatives from 170 countries, including Australia’s Climate Change Minister, Penny Wong, will attend the conference. It’s also the year that the Earth Hour movement is expected to exponentially raise its profile.

The project, which began its life in the Sydney offices of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), has gained considerable global attention already. “We initially had no idea whether Earth Hour would work at all. The plan was if it did, we’d roll it out across Australia and if that worked we’d roll it out in 2009 in the year that the big negotiations for Copenhagen happened. But after the first year lots of people around the world picked up on it so it’s gone faster than we thought it would,” says Earth Hour’s Global Director Andy Ridley.

Last year’s participation numbers were impressive: 2.2 million Sydneysiders, 50 million worldwide, 2270 businesses – including 90 McDonalds outlets. The participation for future Earth Hour events is expected to dwarf these results.
The next big goal is to reach one billion people with Earth Hour and the WWF has spent an extra four months working towards this year’s event.

Earth Hour takes place on March 28 at 8.30pm. Sign up at www.earthhour.org.

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