Botswana joins in Earth Hour celebrations

| Tuesday March 15, 2016 14:35

The event will be held under the theme “Shine a Light on Climate Change”. The public is invited to join the celebrations, which will star t with build-up activities being a march and cycling exercise from Game City at 6am to the event venue where activities would later take place. The Switch-Off event will then commence at 6pm, while the actual earth hour will be observed from 8:3pm to 9:30pm.

Earth Hour is the single largest climate change campaign across the world, and its main aim is to encourage nations to save the planet, which is at present in serious peril due to emissions of Green House Gases (GHGs). These GHG emissions are man-made and emanate from among others, burning coal, factories, landfills and agricultural processes which all have a negative impact on the climate.

The high levels of GHGs in the atmosphere and in the oceans have warmed the climate system, resulting in chaotic weather patterns around the world such as heat waves, floods, drought and reduced rainfall, negative impacts that are likely being experienced in Botswana. Recently, the DMS recorded extreme temperatures in history that went up to 44 degrees Celsius and resulted in loss of lives. According to the 5th Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, extreme temperatures will become a permanent feature around the world due to the rise in surface temperatures over the 21st century under all assessed emission scenarios if nothing is done about the current emission scenarios.

And under this scenario, according to the report, heatwaves will occur more often and last longer and extreme precipitation events will become more intense and frequent in many regions. Furthermore, there will be more frequent hot and fewer cold temperature extremes over most land areas.

As custodians of Energy in Botswana, the Department of Energy requests and encourages businesses, government departments and the general public to take part  in switching off non-essential lights and other electrical appliances during Earth Hour (8:30pm to 9:30pm) and beyond, so as to keep the country’s emissions low and help Botswana mitigate climate change and ultimately save the whole planet.

 

K. Kerekang

Director of Energy

Gaborone