The Bangladeshi government has decided to observe Earth Hour 2012.

Earth Hour is a worldwide event that is organized by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and is held on the last Saturday of March annually, encouraging households and businesses to turn off their non-essential lights for one hour to raise awareness about the need to take action on climate change.

"We've decided to observe Earth Hour and ask the people not to use power during that hour," Towfiq-E-Elahi Chowdhury, Bangladeshi prime minister's energy advisor, told reporters at a press briefing on Thursday.

Earth Hour 2012 will take place on March 31, 2012 from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. at the participating country's local time.

Bangladeshi state-owned Power Development Board Chairman ASM Alamgir said at the press briefing the government could save about 400 tons of liquid fuel and 1.6 million units of electricity if all people in the country observe Earth Hour.

Meanwhile, the country's Power Secretary Abul Kalam Azad said they have started to campaign for it and hope that it would be observed across Bangladesh.

Earth Hour was conceived by the WWF and the Sydney Morning Herald in 2007, when 2.2 million residents of Sydney participated by turning off all non-essential lights. Following Sydney's lead, many other cities around the world adopted the event in 2008.