Wena Environmental Education and News Trust, the organiser of Global Climate Change Campaign, dubbed Earth Hour, pledges with entire Botswana citizens and non-citizens to participate in the Earth Hour campaign, which will be commemorated on 23 March when lights are to be switched off for one hour from 8:30pm to 9:30 pm.
This commemoration will be held under the theme ‘I WILL IF YOU WILL’. Under this theme this commemoration challenges all individuals to act to save the planet earth.
Last year during this campaign on 31 March, the Botswana Power Corporation Safety Health and Environmental manager, Joseph Phalalo, revealed that this country managed to save nine mega-watts.
“We need to work together curb and mitigate effects of climate change. Botswana might be a less emitter of pollution but pollution does not have boundaries, we are all affected in the whole world,” said Wena Environmental Education and News Trust Director, Florah Mmereki.
She said Wena Environmental Education and News Trust is this year targeting 1.2 million people in Botswana to save 20 megawatts of electricity.
Mmereki said switching off electricity during the day of commemoration will reduce the pumping of electricity using coal which will result in less emission of Green House Gases as coal electricity generating contributes to production of those environmental unfriendly gases.
According to the United Nations’ scientific body, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Southren Africa, with Botswana included, will experience reduced rainfall in one hundred years.
Mmereki said as the youth are the future leaders for tomorrow, there is more need for the climate change message to be instilled in them. She said this is because for the next 100 years when the earth is not taken care of, it will be a bad place to live. Mmereki added that is the reason why, in their projects, they have involved a lot of youth.
Also on the cards was the Miss Earth Hour beauty pageant, which was held to sensitise the youth about climate change and global warming. Mmereki said Wena Environmental Education and News Trust has been doing a lot of public crusades which involved in preaching the climate change message in front of bars. She said they had visited many schools and had made many public lectures to teach youth about global warming and climate change.
The day will kick start with a sponsored walk from Game City Mall at 6am. The big event will be at the Gaborone Senior Secondary School grounds.
Mmereki said big companies like DeBeers and Ministries have promised to pledge on the day of commemoration.
She, however, lamented that Earth Hour has not been well supported this year as many companies and organisations said they were affected by the worldwide economic meltdown.
Earth Hour is a campaign which started in Australia in 2007 but this time around there are more than hundred countries participating. Former President Festus Gontebanye Mogae is the patron of Wena Environmental Education and News Trust and he leads One Million Tree Plant project.
