Hong Kong will still lag international standards even after it approves tougher air quality objectives, environmental groups say, while experts believe the city will struggle to meet some of the new targets.
Announcing the new rules yesterday, Secretary for the Environment Edward Yau Tang-wah said standards for levels of lead, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide and sulphur dioxide would match the highest level set down by the World Health Organisation. Standards for other pollutants will be less stringent, based on lower-level WHO targets.
Green activists said Hong Kong's standards would not exactly match those set by the WHO, and argued that lead and carbon dioxide were of little relevance as they were not a main source of pollution in the city.
Greenpeace campaigner Prentice Koo Wai-muk said the installation of desulphurisation systems at electricity stations had already led to significant falls in sulphur dioxide levels.
And Mike Kilburn, head of environmental strategy at think tank Civic Exchange, warned that the city would struggle to meet its new standards for nitrogen dioxide.
Based on the proposed air quality objectives and data from last year, non-profit group Clean Air Network found that there would be at least 600 times a year when hourly roadside levels of nitrogen dioxide at Causeway Bay, Central and Mong Kok exceeded the new benchmark.
Network chief executive Helen Choy said air quality in urban areas would fail to hit the targets every day if no improvements were made.