The lights will be switched off on the Eiffel Tower and on many other Parisian monuments on Saturday evening to mark the global Earth Hour lights-out event and 1,600 paper mache pandas will appear on Trocadero Square.
Earth Hour is organized annually on the last Saturday of March by the World Wildlife Fund. The initiative traces its origin back to Australia in 2007 when businesses and residents in Sydney turned off their lights for one hour to make a statement about energy use and global warming. Four years later, it is the largest voluntary event in history.
“This year 250 monuments, buildings and bridges in Paris will turn off their lights,” a World Wildlife Fund (WWF) statement said.
Famous buildings including the Louvre, Notre Dame, the Pantheon, and many others will have their lights turned off from 8.30 p.m.
In addition, WWF members will set up 1,600 paper mache pandas on Trocadero Square in Paris in front of the Eiffel Tower. They will represent each of the remaining 1,600 pandas left in the wild.
More than 4,000 cities from 131 countries, including Russia's capital, Moscow, and about 750 major landmarks will turn off their lights during the global Earth Hour event on Saturday, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) said on Friday.
PARIS, March 25 (RIA Novosti)
