Earth Hour Report

Scouts officially present Earth Hour results on behalf of world youth

Scouts around the world switched off for Earth Hour on the 28th of March 2009 in a worldwide demonstration of a commitment to take action for the environment. Scouts in at least 44 countries participated in Earth Hour, engaging with their family, friends, classmates and communities to share in this world initiative in partnership with WWF. Scout youth members officially presented the results of Earth Hour to Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change at an official UN meeting in Bonn, Germany. Jonas Rieger (11 years old) and Marie-Christine Bleil (11 years old) along with the other Scouts from the Phoenix Scout Group in Bonn gave the following speech when presenting the Earth Hour results to Yvo de Boer, on the opening day of UN Climate Change talks: "If the world keeps on polluting, it will get very hot in summer and there will be more and more intense storms around the year. If the world keeps on polluting as it is, there will be very little food and water left for us in the future. If greenhouse gases continue to rise, we will lose our future. Earth Hour is a first step. We have done what we can, by telling our parents and our friends to switch off the lights during Earth Hour. We need to be aware about climate change and our energy consumption every time we flip a switch. We are working on saving our future. But now it is up to politicians to do something. We need a global climate deal to be able to work together on this. We voted for Earth, for our future, and for yours- Will you do the same?"

The presentation was accompanied by a speech from Kim Carstensen of WWF, and Rod Abson of the World Scout Bureau who both talked about the importance of the climate change discussions and the tackling this problem with action. Scouts were seen as leaders in their community and important representatives of the young people who need to be prepared to respond to the issues of climate change. Earth Hour was potentially the largest public demonstration on climate change with hundreds of millions of people in over 4,000 cities and towns in 88 countries participating.

We have received confirmation that Scouts from at least 44 countries participated in Earth Hour, a great example of Scouting's worldwide co-operation for the environment: Algeria, Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Canada, Costa Rica, Denmark, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Italy, Ireland, Japan, Lithuania, Madagascar, Malaysia, Maldives, Malta, Mexico, Mozambique, New Zealand, Palestinian Authority, Philippines, Serbia, Seychelles, Singapore, South Africa, Swaziland, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, The Netherlands, Tunisia, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States of America, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe.

If you have participated in Earth Hour and your country is not already listed above, please let Rod Abson of the World Scout Bureau know via email: rodabson@scout.org