Hong Kong's clean-air targets will be toughened for the first time in a quarter of a century from 2014, but they will still fall short of World Health Organisation standards.
Environmentalists criticised the long delay in adopting the new objectives and accused the government of taking a half-hearted approach to implementing more than 20 measures identified to improve air quality.
The Executive Council endorsed the new air quality targets, first put out for public consultation in 2009, yesterday. The Legislative Council must now approve changes to the Air Pollution Control Ordinance.
Secretary for the Environment Edward Yau Tang-wah said there was an urgent need to update air quality objectives, which had not changed since 1987. 'But we have to understand that the ultimate WHO guidelines are a distant target. Even the European Union cannot fully adopt all of them,' Yau said.
'Given the surrounding environment of Hong Kong, we cannot set a goal that is unachievable.'
The new objectives, which lay down atmospheric concentration limits for seven pollutants, are between 10 per cent and 64 per cent more stringent than existing ones.
Yau said the government could not implement the full WHO guidelines at this stage as regional pollution was beyond its control. Instead, targets for three of the seven pollutants will be based on the WHO's interim targets, which are intended to help territories with high levels of pollution move towards the full targets.