Inside Out | Too much Hong Kong property is built and priced around naive ignorance and misplaced optimism towards climate change
While we give lots of lip service to climate change challenges (excepting Donald Trump of course), many cities worldwide seem to be sleepwalking into the crisis, inadequately prepared for the deluge to come. And that includes Hong Kong
When Typhoon Hato swept over Hong Kong three months ago – the first Typhoon signal 10 since Vincent in 2012 – I watched for the second time in five years the tidal surge swamp the vacant village house built optimistically on the waterfront near to me in Clearwater Bay.
The house is valued at more than HK$20 million (US2.56 million). I don’t think it will ever be lived in. But with the flood damage strewn still around it, and global warming lifting sea levels by an inch every four years, I think it will never be sold.
How much of Hong Kong property is built and priced around a naive ignorance and misplaced optimism about the global reality of climate change, of diverse other natural disaster risks that lurk surprisingly close, and of the equally severe challenges created by relentless urbanisation?
If the recently released Lloyds City Risk Index is anything to go by, quite a lot. And the naivety is not confined to Hong Kong. It is worldwide.
Among 301 cities surveyed, Hong Kong ranks fifth among cities most exposed to natural or man-made risk. It is the most exposed worldwide to pandemic risk, and the second most at danger from nuclear accident risk. Lloyds puts the total GDP at risk in Hong Kong at US$74 billion – about a quarter of that due to pandemic risk.
