Punjab government and WWF signs MoU for observing Earth Hour

Lahore: A memorandum of understanding was signed between Punjab government and WWF of UNO to pledge for observing Earth Hour on March 29 at 8.30pm with 154 countries of the world at Punjab Assembly, Lahore.

Provincial Minister for Education Rana Mashhood Ahmed Khan on behalf of Punjab government and Senior Director Operations Anwar Naseem on behalf of WWF signed the MoU. Speaker Punjab Assembly Rana Muhammad Iqbal Khan was also present on the occasion.

 Speaker Punjab Assembly, Rana Muhammad Iqbal Khan said that Pakistan is facing energy crisis for a long time and stressed the need to work jointly with the world for checking wastage of energy. He said that load-shedding will be eliminated from the country in a short period as power plants for generation of 22000 megawatt electricity will be installed within next two years in the country with the practical cooperation of world community especially China. He expressed the hope to make the future of Pakistan bright and achieve a dignified status in the comity of nations.

Provincial Education Minister, Rana Mashhood Ahmed Khan said that the tradition of observing Earth Hour at global level has been started for creating awareness among the people and government institutions to minimize unnecessary use of electricity. He said that every Pakistani should conserve electricity for himself and the nation. He said that with this spirit, we have pledged to play our due role in ridding the earth of energy crisis and environmental degradation side by side developed nations.

Director WWF, Sonia Khan informed that observance of Earth Hour was started in Sidney, Australia when 25 lakh people of Australia gathered there and gave a message of conservation of national resources of the earth and refrain from unnecessary use of energy.

After seven years, this tradition has adopted the shape of a movement and Earth Hour is celebrated as a global event in more than 7000 big cities of 154 countries every year, aimed at motivating the people towards self accountability in using energy.

On this occasion, WWF also announced to declare Punjab as Earth Hour province with the resolve to stand formally against environmental degradation and start a campaign with the name as Earth Hour City Challenge in 12 other districts of Punjab in addition to Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad.