Mayor: Walk, bike on March 25 for Earth Hour 2023
Mayor Benjamin B. Magalong enjoins the public, business sector and government officials and employees to actively support the observance of Earth Hour 2023 on March 25 with the traditional one hour switch off of electronic devices from 8:30PM to 9:30PM.
The city government will host a parade and bike ride to commence at the Post Office, Session Road down Abanao Street, and ending at the City Hall grounds for a culminating program. The march will be participated in by cultural groups, ethnic dance troupes from schools/academe and other sectors.
The mayor issued Executive Order No. 32, series of 2023 mandating the City Administrator’s Office to ensure full participation of the public, business sector and government officials and employees to the Earth Hour 2023 activities.
The mayor also encourages residents and business owners to join in their own homes and establishments by switching off lights, appliances or observing energy conservation measures for at least 1 hour in response to the worldwide call to address global warming.
“We all have to do our part to take care of nature,” the mayor said.
Earth Hour was launched in 2007 with the goal of “making people understand the gravity of the environmental crisis” as also experienced in the Philippines with extreme weather conditions.
The ‘lights off’ moment during the observance of Earth Hour is among the activities being undertaken in the Philippines being one of 178 countries in the world that signed the “Paris Global Climate Deal of 2015” ensuring an emission reduction of 70 percent by 2030.
Lat year, the World Wide Fund for Nature recognized the local government of Baguio and 12 other cities in the country for their commitments and efforts toward sustainability and low-carbon footprint development through the One Planet City Challenge (OPCC) 2022.
The One Planet Cities share a commitment to work toward the Paris Agreement goal – to keep our global temperatures below a 1.5 C rise with clear climate mitigation plans and adapting the most innovative solutions to individual city circumstances, according to the WWF website.
Innovations for cleaner, greener cities include long-term solutions to traffic which is considered by the WWF as the biggest contributor to outdoor air pollution. The WWF suggests reducing traffic emissions through shift from car dependency to active transportation as well as building bike paths and pedestrian safety improvements, creating dedicated public transport lanes including switch to battery-powered electric buses, among others. – JMPS
