- date_default_timezone_set: documentation ( source)
- strtotime: documentation ( source)
<?php
date_default_timezone_set('Australia/Sydney');
$site_timezone = new \DateTimeZone('Australia/Sydney');
$utc = new \DateTimeZone('UTC');
$format = 'Y-m-d h:i:s';
echo \DateTime::createFromFormat($format, '2020-10-01 00:00:00', $site_timezone)->format('U') . PHP_EOL;
echo strtotime('2020-10-01 00:00:00') . PHP_EOL;
echo \DateTime::createFromFormat($format, '2020-10-01 00:00:00', $utc)->format('U') . PHP_EOL;