Last Saturday, March 23, the Lisbon City Council (CML) joined the Earth Hour celebrations. Earth Hour is a global event that invites the community to turn off their lights for 60 minutes. The purpose is to raise awareness about climate change and the protection of the planet.
Last Saturday, March 23, the Alvalade Market hosted Earth Hour celebrations, a global movement that aims to draw attention to climate change and the importance of protecting the planet. The Lisbon City Council (CML) marked the date with Arraial Earth Hour. This event featured sustainable workshops, games and workshops. Some of the highlights of this program were the painting of a mural, alluding to the theme “Together for a better future”, by urban artists Edis One and Pariz One, and also the concert by singer Selma Uamusse.
At the end of this festival, the Mayor of Lisbon, Carlos Moedas, “turned off” the city’s lights, pressing a symbolic switch. “We have to be united, so that each of us can contribute a little to this cause”, said the mayor, shortly before the one-hour blackout, which also occurred in the Town Hall and other places in the city. “We were chosen as one of the cities that will be carbon neutral by 2030, therefore, 20 years before the objective” defined by the European Commission, said the president of CML to Olhares de Lisboa.
Various measures to achieve the defined objectives
This challenge was quickly taken up by the municipality. In this sense, Carlos Moedas highlighted some initiatives that CML has already put into practice to achieve carbon neutrality in 2030. “We invested in free public transport, free Gira bicycles, and many other projects, such as the General Drainage Plan”, among others, he stated. Moedas also said that this process of achieving carbon neutrality “is going well”. “We have planted many trees in Lisbon. We have an average of 30 thousand per year”, continued the president, reinforcing that these bets contribute to “offsetting carbon emissions”.
“Being carbon neutral means compensating for emissions and reducing them, but also compensating for those that always exist in a city and that always exist in a city”, he added. Lisbon is one of 23 European cities chosen by the European Commission to achieve carbon neutrality in 2030. These cities “sign a climate contract, which is a contract that has the investment and the climate action plan. The European Commission said that Portugal, and in this case Lisbon, is on the right path”, added the president of the Lisbon municipality.
Promote smooth mobility and reduce car use
Recently, the CML closed Rua da Prata to car traffic, in order to promote access to Baixa through public transport and smooth modes of travel. For now, said Carlos Moedas, the municipality intends to replicate this initiative in other arteries of the city. “We are analyzing different streets and various projects and also some projects by citizens themselves, such as Rua dos Mastros [na freguesia da Misericórdia], in which we are seeing if it is possible to close the street. Obviously, it cannot be done overnight. Therefore, we are analyzing what people tell us and what they want”, she maintained.
In addition to the Earth Hour celebrations at the Alvalade Market, there were other actions related to this date. Over the last week, several initiatives such as walks and conferences took place. These were organized by Associação Natureza Portugal and World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), with the partnership of CML and the Alvalade Parish Council. Earth Hour began in 2007, in Sydney, Australia, with a symbolic blackout. Currently, it takes place annually in more than 190 countries around the world.
Cover photo @cml
