Austria joins in

Saturday is Earth Hour for climate protection again

A photovoltaic system has been in operation on Vienna City Hall since last year.

(Bild: Groh Klemens)

Tomorrow, Saturday, the lights in Vienna City Hall will be switched off for one hour. The background to this is the WWF "Earth Hour" campaign, which aims to set an example for climate protection. City Hall has been taking part since 2013.

Earth Hour is a global climate and environmental protection campaign that was launched by WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature) Australia in 2007 and has been held annually in March ever since. The first campaign aimed to reduce the city of Sydney's CO₂ emissions by five percent within a year. 

Van der Bellen posted a video
Various institutions in Austria also take part time and again, such as Vienna City Hall. This time, the lights will go out for one hour on Saturday, March 23, from 8.30 pm. A video announcing Earth Hour was posted on the Instagram account of Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen. In it, the politician can be seen with a smartphone in front of the town hall. At first it is still light, but eventually both the lights in the building and on Van der Bellen's smartphone go out.

Here you can see the video of Van der Bellen on "Earth Hour."

"Raising awareness is important"
"Raising awareness plays an essential role in climate protection, so recurring campaigns such as Earth Hour are very important," said Vienna's Climate Councillor Jürgen Czernohorszky in a press release. They would highlight the urgency of the climate crisis and the acute need for action.

The City of Vienna has set itself the goal of being climate-neutral by 2040. To achieve this, buildings, for example, must become emission-free - by switching from fossil fuels to climate-friendly alternatives. Corresponding projects have already been underway for years, such as the construction of a photovoltaic system on the roof of City Hall or the "Wir SAN Wien" renovation campaign. This campaign includes, for example, renovation advice and subsidies.

Renovating for climate targets
"Renovation is an issue for the future (...) In addition, with the new Renovation and Decarbonization Ordinance, we are using innovative instruments to facilitate the renovation of residential buildings and make a significant contribution to achieving our climate targets," Vienna's Housing Councillor Kathrin Gaál is convinced.

Here you can see a video from WWF Austria.

The environmental protection organization WWF recently used Instagram videos to draw attention to the connection between food and the environment. More than a third of greenhouse gases are produced in this area, it said. At EU level, the vote on a law to regulate the restoration of nature was postponed on Friday.