Jakarta - Jakarta has again been awarded the title of National Earth Hour Capital in the 2016 Earth Hour City Challenge (EHCC) organized by WWF. Jakarta is considered worthy of being a role model for other cities in Indonesia in terms of ambition, efforts and plans for climate change adaptation and mitigation activities. Jakarta is considered to have a high commitment to low-carbon development in a number of significant sectors to realize the changes towards Jakarta as a sustainable city.

As the nation's capital, Jakarta encourages innovation and commitment to climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts through a number of reform measures, including through the development of public transportation and the implementation of environmentally friendly buildings (green building) through energy efficiency efforts. Furthermore, Jakarta also received recommendations to strengthen its commitment to the development of renewable energy utilization and the application of energy efficiency, handling emissions from the industrial and transportation sectors and implementing the Regional Action Plan to reduce Greenhouse Gas emissions (RAD-GRK).

"WWF-Indonesia appreciates Jakarta's commitment, ambition and efforts for climate change adaptation and mitigation activities," said Benja Victor Mambai, Acting CEO of WWF-Indonesia. "As the winner of the National Earth Hour Capital title twice in a row, Jakarta can be an inspiration for other cities in Indonesia to realize a sustainable city. Together with 124 other cities in the world, Jakarta, through efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and implement urban development strategies that are oriented towards the prosperity, welfare and equality of the people and environmental sustainability."

At the global level, this year EHCC awarded Paris the title of Global Earth Hour Capital. Paris was judged to have long-term ambition and a comprehensive vision, backed by concrete actions. Paris' commitment to inspire, cooperate and exchange knowledge with other cities in the world, was clearly seen in the opportunity to organize COP21 in 2015.

Jakarta, Bogor and Balikpapan are this year's finalist cities from Indonesia in the Earth Hour City Challenge 2016. The three were selected as finalists among three other cities namely Bandung, Surabaya and Medan which also participated in this year's EHCC awards.

"The results of ICLEI's documentation, during the period 2013-2015, Jakarta managed to increase the number of Bus Rapid Transit (Transjakarta) users to 500,000 passengers per day which reduced CO2 emissions by 146,055 tons, and through energy efficiency efforts in a number of government buildings, emission reductions achieved by 207,657 tons, explained Irvan Pulungan, ICLEI Indonesia representative. "In general, emission reduction efforts by the Jakarta government are currently emphasized on the transportation sector and energy efficiency in government buildings," he said.

Jakarta became the National Earth Hour Capital along with 16 other cities, namely Belo Horizonte, Brazil; Boulder, USA; Chiangrai, Thailand;Edmonton, Canada;Hue City, Vietnam; Lappeenranta, Finland; Montería, Colombia; Murcia, Spain; Petaling Jaya, Malaysia; Quito, Ecuador; Rajkot, India; Santa Rosa, Philippines; Shenzhen, China; City of Singapore, Singapore; Tshwane, South Africa and Umeå, Sweden.

Earth Hour City Challenge 2016 was attended by 125 cities representing 21 countries. EHCC participating cities were judged on their level of ambition and innovation in developing smart solutions to tackle climate change to promote sustainable development at an advanced level in line with local conditions. Paris is the city that was named Global Earth Hour Capital.

Separately, on June 30, 2016 WWF will announce the winners of the global We Love Cities campaign - the public awards version of the Earth Hour City Challenge - on its website welovecities.org and social media accounts Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. The We Love Cities campaign invites the world's citizens to show their support for cities committed to becoming sustainable through voting and posting materials on social media, namely Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. To date, the We Love Cities campaign has garnered the participation of 230,000 people who voted for their favorite cities from the 46 cities featured on the welovecities.org website.

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Note to Editor:

1. WWF is working with ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability to encourage cities' involvement in the Earth Hour City Challenge. In this collaboration, ICLEI facilitates city engagement by providing a carbonn Climate Registry (cCR) tool as a means of reporting data on commitments and initiatives made by each participating city. In addition, ICLEI Indonesia also plays an active role in capturing the involvement of all cities in Indonesia in the EHCC, including in assisting the collection and filling of data in the cCR.

2. The Earth Hour City Challenge 2016 Jury Panel consists of experts and practitioners from international institutions such as ICLEI, Accenture Global, C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, Asian Development Bank, UN Habitat, and World Economic Forum.

For more information, please contact:
Margareth Meutia, Footprint Campaign Coordinator, WWF-Indonesia
Tel: +62 8158812844, Email: MMeutia@wwf.id

Dewi Satriani, Campaign and Mobilization Manager, WWF-Indonesia
Tel: +62 811910970, Email: DSatriani@wwf.id

and visit www.panda.org/ehcc as well as @WWFCities social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.