Last month, the Hong Kong government released its long-awaited climate change strategy and 'action agenda'. Next month, it will host a conference of the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group. As the government works hard to dress up Hong Kong's reputation for climate action, it should acknowledge some hard truths about the scale of the city's contribution to climate change. Today, the Social and Policy Research Unit of the Hong Kong Institute of Education, in collaboration with Civic Exchange, releases a report to help the government do just that.
Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen likes to claim that Hong Kong's greenhouse gas emissions are among the lowest in the developed world. It is true that the city's official reported emissions - just over 6 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per person - are well below those of most developed countries. But these statistics are misleading. Because reported figures record only those emissions coming from within the physical territory of Hong Kong, they don't include some of our most polluting activities.
For example, emissions from air travel and the production and import of food and goods are not counted. These exclusions hide the true size of our carbon footprint.
How much climate pollution do we really cause? The simple answer is that we don't know. A recent study by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology estimated that Hong Kong's 2001 emissions would have been more than four times higher than was reported - equivalent to 29 tonnes of carbon dioxide - if emissions embedded in traded goods were counted. This places us among the world's biggest polluters.
Conservation group WWF estimates that just one economy-class round trip between Hong Kong and London produces emissions equivalent to about 5.7 tonnes of carbon dioxide per passenger - roughly equivalent to the official annual emissions for each Hong Kong citizen. Yet more than six million return international flights taken by Hong Kong residents each year are not included in official pollution figures.
Why does the Hong Kong government use misleading statistics? To be fair, the city's emissions inventory is calculated according to guidelines set by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Under the panel's rules, only developed countries are required to report international aviation emissions. Because Hong Kong is part of developing China, the city is not required to report international air travel, and domestic travel (between Hong Kong and the rest of China) is conveniently added to China's total emissions rather than to Hong Kong's.