Earth Hour 2017 to be observed on March 25

The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Pakistan on Wednesday held an event to set the momentum for Earth Hour (EH) 2017.

The event was organised at the Alliance Francaise where the organisation announced its celebrity ambassadors for the largest volunteer movement across the world.

Model and documentary filmmaker Adnan Malik, VJ and model Anoushey Ashraf and actor and singer Khalid Malik attended the event. The theme for the current year is ‘Shine a Light on Climate Change’.  

Speaking on the occasion, Ali Dehlavi, WWF-Pakistan regional head for Sindh and Balochistan, said climate change posed a fundamental threat to everything on the earth. “Melting glaciers, rising sea levels, and new and more frequent weather extremes such as heatwave and super floods will leave no continent untouched.”

Referring to a study titled ‘Climate Change Adaptation in the Indus Ecoregion’, he shared that one of the key findings was that climate change would affect the agricultural productivity in Pakistan.

“Assuming a half degrees Celsius increase in average nationwide temperatures by 2040, an eight to ten percent loss is expected across all crops corresponding to 30,000 rupees per acre.”

He deplored that water supplies were shrinking, crop yields were dropping, forests were burning, and oceans were becoming more acidic.