‘What a pretty idea! It has all the necessary ingredients for grabbing front page and prime time headlines in the global media for at least a few days.'


Come March 29, at precisely 8 pm local time, Fiji’s capital Suva will become the first city in the world to switch off all lights and electrically powered devices for one whole hour.

This will trigger a chain relay of such one hourly power switch offs by cities across the face of the globe to mark “Earth Hour”, a symbolic act displaying solidarity by the countries of the world to tackle the menacing spectre of climate change.

What a pretty idea! It has all the necessary ingredients for grabbing front page and prime time headlines in the global media for at least a few days. There couldn’t be a better PR idea for the climate change media machine—especially with easy access to funds to popularise it.

But is the world really geared to deal with the deep roots of this beautiful idea? Or is it going to be another pretty idea that is doomed to stay in public relations textbooks as just that—a fantastic case study at raising awareness globally with the single, simple act of switching off lights for an hour?

Global slogans and awareness campaigns such as this one surely have their place in carrying the message to the very grassroots. And if well planned, crafted and implemented they can be made to pack quite a punch in what they convey.

But it is too often that such great ideas fail to get the follow-up support and commitment they deserve, reducing them to mere tokenism or lip service over time. Many times it is simply because of the daunting task of translating that one hour, flash in the pan idea into more meaningful longer term action that can begin to make any tangible difference in people’s every day lives.

And much of the blame for that failure can be squarely laid at the doorstep of national governments, regional bodies, coordinating agencies and their bureaucracies—mainly the lack of responsible and informed leadership at almost all levels.

A similar “Earth Hour” routine was observed three years ago to coincide with the launch of the Kyoto Protocol. It was a great success and did result in raising awareness about carbon-driven climate change across the globe. This month’s observance comes shortly after Kyoto’s third anniversary.

How could the world’s people—the moms and pops and workers and professionals and kids and you and us who will actually switch off lights on the day—switch on our leaders to take on follow-up action?

Last December’s 13th United Nations climate change conference in Indonesia got countries around the world to agree to negotiate under the Kyoto Protocol global emission reduction targets for the period after 2012.

Among other broad agreements, perhaps the most significant outcome of the meet at the end of the Bali Conference from the point of view of small islands nations was the formation of the Adaptation Fund—a financial corpus to help developing nations counter the very real effects of climate change.

US$36 million has been set aside to kick-start the fund, which is to be raised to between $1 billion and 5 billion annually by 2030. A major chunk of this fund is being earmarked for financing projects like the building of sea walls to counter erosion and to rejuvenating natural barriers like mangroves.

Most encouragingly, the document calls for the allocation of greater financial resources and investment for the most vulnerable among of the developing nations—which many of our Pacific Islands very obviously are. Islanders from Tuvalu, Kiribati and other Pacific atoll nations as well as other low lying island nations only know too well, sea level rise is threatening them.

Like in all such endeavours, funds will be limited and there will be too many chasing too few resources. It is important for the Pacific Islands’ individual national and collective leaderships to aggressively push for an early share of the funds by creating lobbying and pressure groups at the necessary levels.

Since the December meet, at which there was overwhelming support for low-lying islands nations everywhere by all parties, there has been little seen and heard in our region on any follow-up strategy either at national or regional level.

If at all there has been any, not much has appeared by way of reports in the media. At this stage, it is not even clear if sea level rise is being dealt with collectively by the region post the December meet.

Papua New Guinea has taken some initiatives in the carbon credit area—something not available to most other Pacific Islands with a few exceptions because of their geographic realities. The carbon angle, in any case, is of little relevance to the Pacific Islands.

It is the very grim reality of sea level rise—the causes of it really should not matter to Pacific Islanders at this late stage—that must concern the hearts and minds of the regional leadership.

As Suva switches off its lights on March 29 followed by others, the people of the Pacific Islands region must make it a point to switch on their leaders and regional organisations to the urgency of the necessary tasks to deal with the rapidly growing problem of sea level rise.

It is important for people to put increasing pressure on the leadership to not only claim early access to funds set out for the immediate physical mitigation of the problem such as the building of sea walls but also look at long-term issues. One of these is to push a global policy on permanent migration for the most affected populations.

While Pacific Islanders are encouraged to participate wholeheartedly in this global show of solidarity by switching off power at their individually designated times beginning this month, what is of utmost importance is for them to push their leadership to achieve traction on what is already a fairly well laid out plan at the Bali conference—both nationally and the regional level.

Only then will the symbolic one hour lights off routine have any real meaning for Pacific Islanders.