In support of international initiatives to save the environment and combat climate change, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) has called on Filipinos to participate in this year's observation of "Earth Hour" on March 25 carrying the theme "The Biggest Hour for the Earth.”

Earth Hour is an annual global movement organized by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) that encourages individuals, communities, and businesses to turn off non-essential electric lights for one hour on the last Saturday of March as a symbol of commitment to the planet.

The DENR said it has ordered all of its regional and field offices, bureaus and attached agencies nationwide to turn off their lights from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m. for this year’s event.

“The one-hour ‘lights off’ action significantly lowers energy consumption, thus reducing carbon emission and harmful greenhouse gases (GHG), whose biggest source is electricity,” the agency said in a statement.

Other Earth Hour activities planned by DENR regional offices include posting infographics about the event, inviting high schools, universities, and colleges to take part in the initiative, and encouraging internet users to take photos of themselves participating in the Earth Hour and post them to the DENR's regional Facebook pages along with a brief description of their experience.  

In addition to this, the DENR urged Filipinos to embrace the WWF's call to "donate an hour for Earth"— that is, to spend 60 minutes doing something beneficial for the planet—in order to increase awareness of the climate problem.

“These include watching documentary or educational films on environmental issues, such as the WWF Entangled Series of three-minute videos on biodiversity loss, deep seabed mining, planet plastic, nature-based solution, and other topics; listening to podcasts or talks of the WWF, British Broadcasting Corporation and TED Talks; and joining Earth Hour events near them,” it said.

Moreover, the environment department reminded the public to properly manage and take responsibility for their solid waste as it is also a source of GHG. 

“Proper waste disposal and reducing, reusing and recycling will cut down waste and pollution from homes, schools, offices and the manufacturing sector,” it said.

With its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), the Philippines pledged to reduce and avoid greenhouse gas emissions in the agriculture, transport, energy, waste, industry, and forestry sectors by 75 percent between 2020 and 2030. The last three of these are under the DENR's purview. 

The NDC is the nation's action plan to assist in achieving the Paris Agreement's goal of keeping the rise in the global temperature to below two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to keep it to 1.5 degrees Celsius. 

In 2022, Environment Secretary Maria Antonia “Toni” Yulo-Loyzaga led the Philippine delegation to the 27th Conference of Parties (COP27) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt where the Philippines was one of only two Asian countries that signed the High Ambition Coalition (HAC) for Nature and People.

The HAC aims to protect over 30 percent of land and ocean by 2030 through financial assistance from the public and private sectors for the management and implementation of programs on nature.