A resort in Maldives

The Maldives celebrated the “Earth Hour” for the first time, on Saturday night. Earth Hour is a global event organised by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). The Earth Hour is held on the last Saturday of March annually, asking households and businesses to turn off their non-essential lights and other electrical appliances for one hour to raise awareness towards the need to take action on climate change.

People of the Maldives  in Malé, the resorts and other islands took part in the celebration by turning off all the electrical equipment that weren’t absolutely necessary between 8:30pm and 9:30pm. According to Haveeru newspaper there was a decrease of a 3MW consumption in the most populous capital island Male’.

According to Minivan News President Mohamed Nasheed has said awareness about climate change has increased over recent years. The Earth Hour celebrations in the Maldives,  began with the president switching off the lights of his residence, Muleeaage, at 8.30pm on Saturday.

Maldives has tropical warm climate

The climate is influenced by the monsoon winds blowing across the Indian Ocean. The monsoon type brings two major climatic variations to the Maldives. The South-west monsoon extends from May to October and brings more rain accompanied by wind.  Locally this is season is referred to as Iruvai.  The North-east monsoon extends from November to April and is drier and brings less wind. Locals call this period Hulhangu.

Being an equatorial country, the Maldives has abundant sunshine and an average temperature of 28 degrees Celsius. Convection air currents bring huge downpours occasionally. The relative humidity ranges from 73% to 85%.

Maldives with warm climate and less air polution enjoys clear visibility and sea breeze through out the year.