HONGKONG should be able to meet a United Nations agreement on bringing greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2000, but there could be difficulties controlling the problem beyond then.
The Environmental Protection Department (EPD) issued the warning after recently completing an inventory and projections of local greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide, which is the main problem gas and is linked to global warming.
Changes in the Earth's temperature of just a few degrees may result in potentially catastrophic climate changes, including drought in inland areas and flooding in coastal areas, such as Hongkong, as polar ice caps melt.
The inventory was one of the stipulations made at the UN-sponsored Earth Summit held in Brazil last June, in which most countries, including Britain and China, pledged to reduce greenhouse gas levels up to and beyond 2000.
Hongkong produced 34.9 million tonnes of greenhouse gases in 1990, more than 75 per cent from coal-fired electricity stations and the rest from commercial, industrial and other sources.
That is expected to dip to about 32.5 million tonnes by 2000, largely because China Light and Power will use less-polluting natural gas at its massive new Black Point power station. If it had stuck with coal, the output would have been more than 40 million tonnes.
But Mr Fred Tromp, assistant director of air and noise in the EPD, said the picture beyond 2000 was less encouraging.
