Mongolia is among several countries that, for the first time this year, will join a global initiative to highlight climate change. Ulaanbaatar will be among the more than 1,100 cities and towns in some 100 countries to switch off their lights for an hour on March 27 at 8.30pm GMT as part of the conservation group Worldwide Fund for Nature”s (WWF) Earth Hour.

The Earth Hour event first took place in Sydney in 2007 with some two million people switching off their lights. This year”s event, hailed as the biggest yet, will ripple across the earth as communities dim the lights in 25 time zones, including on some of the world”s most iconic landmarks.

Countries and regions taking part for the first time include Mongolia, Cambodia, Czech Republic, Ecuador, Madagascar, Nepal, Paraguay, Saudi Arabia, and the US Commonwealth of the Northern Marina Islands in the Pacific Ocean.