Tougher air-quality standards promised for HK by 2009
Hong Kong is to introduce new air quality standards by 2009 after the first review in 20 years, made in the face of repeated calls from activists and the medical community.
A steering committee of government officials, joined by experts and academics, will oversee a study to be launched early next year on how to comply with new World Health Organisation guidelines to be released in September.
It will be followed by public consultation in 2008 before a set of new air quality objectives and an action plan are finalised, according to a paper to be discussed by the Advisory Council on the Environment.
Adoption of the WHO guidelines would be a step forward in the city's long battle against air pollution, which environment officials described as a top priority for the government.
But the paper said the WHO standards could not be met, even if local emissions were eliminated, without drastic measures across the border. And environmentalists said the study period was too long, raising suspicions that it would be used as an excuse by officials not to take immediate action. Officials in the past had argued against setting tougher standards because the existing ones could not be met.
The WHO guidelines are far more stringent than the existing ones and include a standard for very fine particles that the city does not have.
The study will also assess such issues as economic implications, time frame, interfaces with the mainland and impact on various policy areas before deriving 'practical and achievable options', the paper says.
Friends of the Earth director Mei Ng Fong Siu-mei said the study period was too long and she feared it would overemphasise hurdles to achieving the new objectives.
'It could become a shield for the government so it can delay the necessary measures with excuses about economic and financial issues,' she said.
Civic Exchange chief executive Christine Loh Kung-wai, said officials should speed up the study, increase its transparency and share information with the public. 'Since our health is already under threat, is it their duty to expedite the process?' she said.
