Hong Kong can play a leading role in reducing global warming, and the city faces a bleak future if targets to reduce the release of greenhouse gases are not met, a visiting British minister has warned.
In a speech outlining the British government's commitment to tackling climate change, Minister for Trade, Investment and Foreign Affairs Ian McCartney urged the government to take a leading role and increase the proportion of energy taken from renewable sources.
The Hong Kong government has said that by 2010 it plans to have between 1 and 2 per cent of energy coming from sustainable sources.
Mr McCartney, whose portfolio includes sustainable development and climate change, said the city's position as one of the world's great business centres, with its focus on the mainland, would be instrumental in slowing climate change.
Tropical storms had become more frequent in the past 50 years, droughts and water shortages and expanding deserts were plaguing the mainland and rising sea levels could devastate Hong Kong.
'I'm glad engineers and architects had the foresight to build your splendid airport nine metres above sea level,' he told a gathering at the Foreign Correspondents' Club. 'However, if the Greenland ice shelf continues to melt and reaches a tipping point, it will only be seaplanes landing.'
