In the observance of Earth Hour on Saturday, 23 March, Department of Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Maria Antonia Yulo-Loyzaga said that human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment.

In her message, Loyzaga said the country must face the urgency of a planetary crisis.

"While global discourse on climate resilience continues, we must face the urgency of our planetary crisis. The Earth Hour reminds us of both the promise and the perils of our current trajectories," Loyzaga said.

Pointing that the Earth was formed 4.5 billion years ago and earliest ancestors emerged roughly in the last 300,000 [years], evidence showed that humans, "as we know them in Asia, may have emerged genetically less than 15,000 years ago."

"And in that blink of an eye, we stand today in the Anthropocene; being the only species able to alter what took billions of years to form. Scientists say we have crossed six of the nine planetary boundaries – leading our earth to the precipice of irreversible change," she explained.

"We can generate alternative and artificial intelligence, send men to the moon and satellites into space and search for signs of life on other planets. Yet, we cannot control our fossil-fueled consumption nor prevent plastics from reaching our oceans and ensure that there is access to safe sustainable water resources," Loyzaga added.

And at a crossroads as a species already responsible for threatening the extinction of those depending on the protection for their life on this planet, Loyzaga said "the choice is ours and there must be no other than to be stewards and captains of our Earth’s future."

"We renew this commitment this year as we stand with the World-Wide Fund for Nature – Philippines (WWF Philippines) in the global observance of Earth Hour 2024 with the local theme, “Switch Off Plastic Pollution, Switch On Nature”.

"As we engineer behavioral and social change, we urge our knowledge and innovation leaders across all sectors to confront the socio-economic realities of plastic use, and develop and design alternative materials that are as functional and affordable as petroleum-based plastic," Loyzaga urged.

"Our responses to this complex challenge must not only be bottom-up but also top-down, cutting across all sectors. Industry, government and academia must lead the CHANGE lest our Earth choke in the hands of the most intelligent species that ever lived," she said.

"We broke this planet. We may still have a chance to fix it – but we must ACT TODAY," Loyzaga stressed.