Don't wait for Beijing to act on climate change, city told
Hong Kong has been urged by a leading international environmental scientist to set its own target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, even though Beijing has yet to set any national targets.
The call, from Ogunlade Davidson, came on the eve of a three-day international conference on climate change that has brought hundreds of representatives from 26 nations to Hong Kong.
It comes amid increasing pressure from local green activists for the government to enact a climate-change policy.
Hong Kong, despite being a highly developed economy, is not obliged to meet any of the mandatory targets in the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, because China as a developing nation has not set any target.
'It is advisable, though not essential, for countries to have targets to achieve, as it can tell how much an economy has to bear,' said Professor Davidson, who will speak at the opening of the International Conference on Climate Change today.