Lights out across UAE as Earth Hour 2018 is marked (Video)

The UAE joined countries all over the world in marking Earth Hour on Saturday evening by switching off thousands of lights.

Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of the Executive Council of Dubai, together with the Emirates Wildlife Society (EWS) and World Widelife Fund (WWF), have organised ‘Connect to Earth’ and called upon the public to switch off unnecessary lights between 8:30pm and 9:30pm.

Between 8.30PM and 9.30 PM, thousands of homes, businesses and government departments switched off their lights to raise awareness of the planet’s environmental degradation.

The Roads and Transport Authority, RTA switched off 1433 street lights across the UAE, whilst landmarks across the Emirates went dark for one hour.

In Abu Dhabi, the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque was one of the major land marks that turned its lights off, while in Dubai, the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building was also plunged into darkness.

Emirates Global Aluminium said it had saved over 70,000 kilowatt hours of electricity in the past year through weekly observance of Earth Hour.

Carrefour UAE also participated by switching off 50 per cent of light in its 28 stores nationwide.

Also participating were employees from Expo 2020 Dubai who assembled 210 solar-powered lights from Beacon of Hope UAE, as were members of Abu Dhabi police led by Major General Mohammed Khalfan Al Rumaithi.