CONSUMERS will have to rethink their buying habits and cut down on purchases if global environmental problems are to be solved, a visiting UK expert warned yesterday.
The heavy dependence on electrical appliances and other goods in developed places such as Hongkong, and the increasing ability in less-developed places such as China to own such items, created burdens on energy output which added to global warming, Mr John Winward claimed.
A refrigerator in every home in China, for instance, would require a vast amount of electricity provided mostly by coal, one of the main causes of global warming, he said.
Mr Winward is research director of the Consumers' Association in Britain. He is in Hongkong to give a public lecture on green consumerism on Wednesday.
''The world population is expanding and perhaps will double in the next century,'' he said.
''It seems inconceivable that the kind of material consumption we've started to take for granted in the West can be replicated around the world.'' But the issues of who should make the sacrifices - whether China should give up its goal of a refrigerator for every household or the United States should phase out private cars - were controversial, and debate was needed.
''It's easier to sell the idea of environmental improvement to people already well off,'' Mr Winward said.