Thank you for taking part in Earth Hour 2009
On behalf of everyone at WWF, we'd like to say a big, big THANK YOU to all who took part in Earth Hour 2009.
Because of you it was the biggest Earth Hour ever. More than 4,000 towns and cities across 88 countries participated, reaching one billion.
People who switched off their lights demonstrated their concern at how our climate is changing.
It was an amazing night. We couldn't have done it without you
How did we go?
Key community achievements in Australia
- 49% of Australian adults participated
- All Australian capital cities participated
- Around 56% (315) of Australia’s local councils committed to Earth Hour, demonstrating strong regional support across the country (those councils contained 85% of Australia's population)
- More than 98,000 people registered their support online
- More than 4,300 news items across Australian print, radio, television and online (approx $11m in value)
Australia's major icons switched off including the Opera House and Harbour Bridge (Sydney), Flinders Street Station (Melbourne), Story Bridge (Brisbane), Parliament House (Canberra), WA War Memorial (Perth), Rundle Mall Lantern (Adelaide).
The term "Earth Hour" is set to be included in the 2010 edition of the Macquarie Dictionary
Key business achievements in Australia
- A quarter of Australian workplaces participated
- More than 3,500 organisations and companies formally registered
- 99 of the ASX100 companies registered
- 100% of Australian universities participated
- 100% of "Forbes Top 40" Australian Companies registered
- 5,943 buildings in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Perth CBDs registered through property managers
- 47,000+ hotel rooms around Australia participated
- Federal Government participation in more than 1,500 government buildings (3.7 million sqm of floor space)
Key achievements internationally
- 4,088 cities, towns and municipalities in 88 countries across the globe participated
- 73 national capitals participated
- 18 out of 20 G20 countries took part
- 9 out of 10 of the world's most populated cities switched off
- Rolling 24 hour news coverage from media partner Sky News
- The Vice President of the United States celebrated Earth Hour with the President of Chile
- The world's most famous landmarks went dark: the Pyramids (Egypt), Burj Al Arab hotel (Dubai), Eiffel Tower (France), Vatican (Italy), Acropolis (Greece), Big Ben (UK), the Las Vegas Strip and Empire State Building (USA), Christ the Redeemer (Brazil), Bird’s Nest Stadium (China) and the Petronas Twin Towers (Malaysia).
Global social media statistics
During the 2009 campaign
- There were 87 million mentions of Earth Hour on the web
- Earth Hour has at least 2.4 million social media supporters
- There have been over 8.3 million online views of Earth Hour video and images
During the 24 hour roll out
- Earth Hour was mentioned online 300 times per second
- The Earth Hour video was watched 10 times per second
- Earth Hour was the #1 top trending topic on Twitter
Again a big thank you to everyone! However our work isn't done yet.
Stay tuned on twitter on what else we can do against the battle on climate change.
