SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Yellowknife is No. 10 on a list of Canada's top 10 cities fighting against climate change.

The Earth Hour list, compiled by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and Corporate Knights, ranks cities based on greenhouse gas emission reduction, municipal greenhouse gas reduction targets, renewable energy, green building and green transportation.

Mayor Gord Van Tighem said since Yellowknife consistently appear on the Corporate Knights list of Canada's most sustainable small cities, it's no surprise the city made this list as well. Corporate Knights is a quarterly publication, based in Toronto, which bills itself as "the magazine for clean capitalism."

The cities on the list are positive examples of municipalities that work to conserve energy and use it more efficiently, according to the WWF press release.

Earth Hour is an annual event - happening Saturday at 8:30 p.m. - where people around the world turn off their lights for one hour, as a way for taking action against climate change. Van Tighem said although he's energy conscious year-round, these events are a efficient way or reminding people to keep good habits.

"The key is that it takes a trigger event for people to realize how easy it is to do things.

"Yes, it's symbolic, but in a symbolic event, there's also an opportunity to learn things you can do day-to-day."

Doug Ritchie, program director for Ecology North, said on a symbolic level, Earth Hour is an important event because it gets people working together around the globe.

"For that reason alone, I think it's worthwhile participating, but on the other side of the coin, we feel like we have to go beyond symbolic events and that we really do need to radically change how we heat our homes and light our homes and things like that.

"Symbolic actions without real substantive change is not sufficient to meet the challenge of climate change."

Ritchie said the true benefit of the event is that it makes people think about their energy use.

Once people consider it and approach it with a proactive attitude, cutting back will be easy, he said.

"I sort of tell people, don't sweat the small stuff - sweat the larger stuff. Whenever things are heavier, whether it's your car, your home, your fridge or appliances, that's when you really should be paying extra attention."

The city will monitor the energy use on Saturday night to see what kind of difference is made during the event.

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