A place of safe shelter
In Hong Kong, people often rejoice at the first sign of a typhoon, and the unexpected 'holiday', but 23-year-old 'Eggtart' Chow Tze-chun takes the news seriously.
'The high number of typhoons this year is due to climate change,' says Chow, a local film producer. 'But most people here don't see it that way because we are well-protected from storms. In poor countries, people are less protected.'
What sounds obvious is actually unknown to most Hongkongers, at least according to a poll conducted in August by the University of Hong Kong. The survey found that 80 per cent of locals above 16 years of age do not know how climate change affects poor people, and only 36.7 per cent think they should be held responsible for Hong Kong's high levels of greenhouse gas emissions.
Despite information spread by hard-hitting movies like An Inconvenient Truth and innumerable environmental awareness campaigns, converting people to environmentally-friendlier habits is still an uphill battle.
Chow, his co-producer Bee Huang Kwai-fung and Oxfam Hong Kong, a poverty-fighting non-governmental organisation, hope that putting a human face to the climate crisis will change all that. They have just launched a short film to illustrate how local youths are sheltered from the effects of climate change. Billed as a local version of An Inconvenient Truth, the 30-second production, called Climate Crisis, targets local youths, and will air in local cinemas and on YouTube.
The film makes a simple point: climate change affects the poor first and worst. It contrasts scenes of a Hong Kong teenager covering herself with lotion against the demolition of fragile shelters from floods. An African woman bakes under the sun while the local teenager stands in front of a fridge to cool off. Both scenes, the film implies, are related to climate change, but clearly some people are suffering more than others.
'The girl needs extra moisture and coolness because the air's drier and hotter these days,' says Fiona Shek Hoi-wai, communications officer at Oxfam Hong Kong and the film's scriptwriter. 'This is all due to global warming, but in Hong Kong it's easy to just make adjustments for it.'
Poor people depend on predictable weather, Shek adds, because their livelihoods are based on farming, fishing and natural resources. 'Climate change brings about extreme weather, so poor people are hit the hardest when this happens.'
Sadly, developed, sheltered countries, such as Hong Kong, are the ones causing the problems, she says. For instance Hong Kong's carbon dioxide emission levels are twice the global average.
'Air-conditioning is the biggest culprit,' she says. 'Youths here use so much air-conditioning; they think very short-term.'
To see the video, visit yp. scmp.com
