Hong Kong's first carbon footprint calculator to be launched
A green group will launch the first Hong Kong-based carbon footprint calculator to enable people to work out how much they contribute to the world's daily output of greenhouse gases and how to reduce or offset it.
WWF Hong Kong said its website would list 10 questions about daily life ranging from home energy use and transport. It would help users gain an idea of how many tonnes of carbon dioxide their activities generated and how many trees it would take to offset those emissions.
The website was part of a year-long climate change campaign to be launched later this year, the group said. 'It will be the first Hong Kong-based carbon footprint calculator,' said Agnes Tsang, WWF strategic conservation communication manager.
Ms Tsang said climate change and global warming were hotly debated topics. This campaign would let people recognise how they personally affected global warming and how to minimise the impact.
'People can change their lifestyles, such as using environmentally friendly light bulbs and switching off computers if they don't need them to reduce emissions,' she said.
'We are not only arousing public awareness, we want people to take action because the threat of climate change is very imminent.'
In February the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued its latest assessment report on climate change, which concluded that global warming was 'unequivocal' and gave the strongest warning yet that more than 90 per cent was caused by human activities.
In the United States, a heatwave in the Southeast and Midwest has killed at least 44 people.
In Switzerland, the Aletsch glacier had retreated by 115 metres in the past two years alone, Greenpeace said.
Greenhouse gas emissions per capita in Hong Kong amounted to 6.5 tonnes in 2005, up from 6 tonnes in 1997. This compared with 10 tonnes in Japan in 2004 and 23 tonnes in the US in 2003.
