This year's Earth Hour was one that we, as residents of the UAE, truly marked with admiration. The Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) had already begun spreading awareness about the same in the form of banners, newspaper advertisements, and even in the form of trucks that had the countdown of exactly how many seconds to go before Earth Hour!

This time, they had already collaborated with earthour.org and had come up with the social media hashtags of #SwitchOff #Shutdown #Reset #Save which buzzed all around like wildfire. 

I first went to celebrate the auspicious event at the Al Majaz Waterfront in Sharjah. There were loads of booths that were assigned to various environmental companies from Sharjah. Bee?ah, Sharjah?s leading Environmental Waste Management Company, was also among them There were several activities that were lined up for children such as pot making, glass jar painting, etc. There were also a Magic show and inspirational video that was displayed to motivate the students.

I partook in painting an earthen pot, organized by the Sharjah Art Museum, to give it a new life and to display my love to Mother Nature by decreasing production, minimizing energy, and hence reducing CO2 emissions!

Then, to truly make this a very ?versatile? Earth Hour, I moved on to the Bay Avenue Park, in the downtown area, Dubai, to cap off my Earth Hour by participating in the Earth Hour Walk as I was appointed to hold the banner of the Emirates Environmental Group (EEG), owing to the fact that I was a very veteran and an active member.

Even in Dubai, there was an array of environment-led activities for children and adults. I really loved the way the waste management company in Abu Dhabi, 'Tadweer' had an amazing Idea of Waste Disposal by keeping a Basket Hoop just above the bin, so that disposal becomes challenging and fun.

There was also a stall that highlighted the fact that LED bulbs needed a lot less energy than incandescent ones. This was showcased by attaching a Dynamo to a cycle, and then the amplified power was sent to the incandescent bulb which took a tiring amount of cycling to power up, whereas the LED bulbs hardly took any effort and they actually used the metaphor of 'Power' to distinguish between the two bulbs.

During the Earth Hour, from 8:30 to 9:30, there was complete darkness at the event as we proceeded for the Earth Hour Walk. It was really heartening to see the EEG student members come up with enthusiasm and participate in this Street-long walk. The usually highlighted skyscrapers such as the World?s Tallest Building, The Burj Khalifa, the posh Address Hotel and the entire beautifully illuminated skyline of the Sheikh Zayed Road was a part of this campaign.

I also took a pledge on the Tree of Hope, and I supported other student groups as well that were part of the event. I appreciated a young girl who was in charge of this very pledge-making tree. Until 11 in the night, she was responsibly handling the job assigned and I was dumbfounded to see this.

DEWA's two mascots representing Electricity and Water, celebrated their Birthday, and they had a cake-cutting ceremony too to mark this achievement.

There was even a photo booth with artificial snow, and  a tag of the ?Climate Change Champions? of 2015 where I was inspired to see the people who had made a trip to Antartica just to spread the message of Climate Change

In short, the Earth Hour 2015 was one of the most memorable ones as I celebrated it in two different emirates, with two new perspectives, hence, doubling the efforts towards a Zero Carbon footprint.

 P.S.: Some more pics holding the EEG banner high @ The Earth Hour are attached. Please go through them.