THE Government's environmental credentials are a very pale green indeed. Despite the lip service paid to protecting the environment, and a few high-profile measures like the sewage treatment scheme, its policies are few and ill-defined. The well-meaning officials directly involved with environmental planning try to do their best with limited resources. But the fruits of their labours are overshadowed by a seeming lack of commitment on the part of the administration. The draft review of environmental policy presented to Legco's environmental affairs panel yesterday is a document so short on concrete proposals, cost estimates or target dates that much of it will be regarded as an environmentally unsound waste of paper. Ironically, it has emerged just as the territory, like Southern China, is beginning to wake up to issues that have been of major concern elsewhere for several years. Scientists believe that up to 35 per cent of the Pearl River Delta could be under water,and much of Hongkong's heavily populated reclaimed land prone to serious flooding within 50 years as a result of global warming. Meanwhile, legislators are demanding assurances that electromagnetic fields from overhead power lines will not cause cancer. It is time that the Government took the growing public concern with green issues seriously and set itself real targets for improving the quality of Hongkong's environment. Without concrete measures and a commitment to act in the shortest practical term for the longer term good, grand promises of a greener Government ring hollow.
