Lights in more than 100 buildings and landmarks will be turned off for an hour tomorrow in observance of “Earth Hour,” a global event that aims to raise awareness of the need to address the problem of climate change.
The event was first launched in Australia in 2007, when millions of residents in Sydney volunteered to switch off non-essential lights for an hour.
Since then, an increasing number of countries observe Earth Hour, which takes place on the last Saturday of March between 8:30pm and 9:30pm each year.
Taiwan started observing Earth Hour in 2010.
According to the Society of Wilderness, which helps organize the event in Taiwan, 2.2 billion people in 135 countries are scheduled to observe Earth Hour this year.
Society of Wilderness president Lai Jung-hsiao (賴榮孝) said the -society aimed to encourage more local residents and organizations to join the event tomorrow.
“We hope that we can have a million residents, a hundred corporations and a hundred buildings in Taiwan participate in the event,” Lai said.
“We have invited celebrities to lead the countdown to the event. On March 1, we had [Acer Inc founder] Stan Shih (施振榮). Tomorrow, it will be President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九),” Lai said.
“We hope to spread the message through social media sites and meet our goal this year,” Lai said.
Lai said more than 100 local organizations have signed up to participate.
Non-essential lights at several landmarks around the country, including the Presidential Office and Taipei 101 in Taipei, as well as the Liouhe Night Market and E-Da Theme Park in Greater Kao-hsiung, will turned off for an hour tomorrow.
China has reserved offshore airspace in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported yesterday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. These alerts, known as Notice to Air Missions (Notams), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert is
More than 6,000 Taiwanese students have participated in exchange programs in China over the past two years, despite the Mainland Affairs Council’s (MAC) “orange light” travel advisory, government records showed. The MAC’s publicly available registry showed that Taiwanese college and university students who went on exchange programs across the Strait numbered 3,592 and 2,966 people respectively. The National Immigration Agency data revealed that 2,296 and 2,551 Chinese students visited Taiwan for study in the same two years. A review of the Web sites of publicly-run universities and colleges showed that Taiwanese higher education institutions continued to recruit students for Chinese educational programs without
NAMING SPAT: The foreign ministry called on Denmark to propose an acceptable solution to the erroneous nationality used for Taiwanese on residence permits Taiwan has revoked some privileges for Danish diplomatic staff over a Danish permit that lists “Taiwan” as “China,” Eric Huang (黃鈞耀), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs, told a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Reporters asked Huang whether the Danish government had responded to the ministry’s request that it correct the nationality on Danish residence permits of Taiwanese, which has been listed as “China” since 2024. Taiwan’s representative office in Denmark continues to communicate with the Danish government, and the ministry has revoked some privileges previously granted to Danish representatives in Taiwan and would continue to review
A bipartisan group of US senators has introduced a bill to enhance cooperation with Taiwan on drone development and to reduce reliance on supply chains linked to China. The proposed Blue Skies for Taiwan Act of 2026 was introduced by Republican US senators Ted Cruz and John Curtis, and Democratic US senators Jeff Merkley and Andy Kim. The legislation seeks to ease constraints on Taiwan-US cooperation in uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), including dependence on China-sourced components, limited access to capital and regulatory barriers under US export controls, a news release issued by Cruz on Wednesday said. The bill would establish a "Blue UAS
RSS