The nervousness of the officials selling the plan for a third airport runway last week was matched only by the impressive line-up of the lobbying team. The voice of politicians and academics backing the plan swamped the airwaves for days after it was announced. The authority knows it has a tough plan to sell: a price tag of HK$136 billion, the biggest reclamation of land since the handover, an irreversible damage to an important dolphin habitat, and a yet-to-be quantified impact to climate change and air quality. Despite the adverse impact, the best chance for the government to convince the community of its plan is to adopt an honest approach in public engagement. Economists and commentators were quick to question the authority's estimate of economic return - HK$912 billion over 50 years. But the biggest surprise of the plan was not what it contains, but what it omits despite years of preparation. In 2007, when Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen was pursuing his second term, he promised a grand plan to link up the Hong Kong and Shenzhen airports with a high-speed rail line. At that time, this was touted as an ingenious way to integrate the two airports and to enhance Hong Kong's competitive position as an air traffic hub. Nothing much has been heard since. Government officials were silent on this project in the launch last week. Has this been considered as an alternative or supplement to the third runway? If and when the third runway is built, are we going to spend another HK$100 billion or more on this rail link? If plans for the rail link have been dumped, don't Hongkongers have the right to know even though that means the chief executive may lose face over yet another broken promise? The people cannot be expected to decide on the basis of incomplete options, which should include not just the rail link, but other possibilities such as a shorter third runway to cater primarily for mainland-bound flights. Another major omission is the lack of proposed measures to mitigate the negative environmental impact. Officials vow to 'balance' economic development with environmental protection. One would therefore expect estimates of economic gains on one hand, and plans for marine conservation, pollution reduction and carbon offset on the other. Instead, the public was told that none of the latter would surface until an environmental impact assessment is conducted after the project gets the nod. Given the deficiency of the current system for environmental impact study, this is a recipe for confrontation. What we need now is a platform for negotiation among stakeholders. The pros and cons of various options should be put on the table. The costs and benefits of mitigation plans should be examined and openly debated. Only then can a sensible balance be struck. Any attempt to delay such discussion or hide away relevant plans will only increase the mistrust of those most affected by the project. The Airport Authority may rightly feel that it cannot jump-start the statutory environmental impact assessment process now. But it should still conduct strategic impact studies to provide sufficiently concrete plans for public scrutiny. The time and effort it spends in this exercise will be earned back during the formal process of an environmental assessment, if and when that is required. Meanwhile, the authority should release the full range of consultancy reports it commissioned over the years, and invite the Legislative Council to appoint an independent checker to verify its economic claims. Some officials privately claim their worst fear is a judicial review that will delay the project, given the recent verdict on the bridge to Macau and Zhuhai. However misguided this claim may be, officials should nevertheless learn to engage the public early, lay out honest alternatives, and explore the best available technologies to protect the environment, in accordance with international best practice. Hong Kong has the resources to do it right. The project comes at a difficult time for Hong Kong. Despite economic growth, Hong Kong is going through a 'social recession', as defined by Tim Jackson of the British government's Sustainable Development Commission: rising income inequality, soaring property prices, declining social mobility and an acute sentiment of injustice in both the middle class and the grass roots. Pumping HK$136 billion into a single infrastructure project in a social recession is not likely to boost Hong Kong's happiness index. Yet the city has excelled in providing airport and airline services. Maintaining this competitive edge is not just about economic growth, but also about a vital means to strengthen our cultural nexus to the world. The question is how. Albert Lai Kwong-tak is chairman of the Professional Commons and vice-chairman of the Civic Party
