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Letters | Hong Kong budget again kicks climate crisis can down the road

  • Environmental issues were thinly scattered through the latest budget, although Hong Kong has committed to achieving carbon neutrality by 2050

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Students walk past damaged trees in Sheung Shui after Typhoon Mangkhut hit Hong Kong on September 16, 2018. Extreme weather events are one of the consequences of climate change. Photo: Sam Tsang
Letters
Environmental issues in the latest budget remain a thin patchwork of marginal measures, despite the far-reaching announcement several months ago of China’s pledge of achieving carbon neutrality by 2060, followed by Hong Kong’s 2050 target. These climate goals have profound implications for how Hong Kong plans and manages its financial, scientific and social development over the next few years. The obvious truth is: the more we delay action, the more challenging the task will become.

Despite being the first budget since the chief executive announced the city will “strive to achieve carbon neutrality before 2050”, this budget treats climate action as a “nice-to-have”.

In failing to respond to climate goals, the financial secretary has kicked the can down the road again. We learn that fossil-fuel cars will continue to be registered up to 2035. Will these cars have only a 15-year life? Will they become stranded assets? Or will we magically achieve carbon neutrality with large numbers of petrol and diesel vehicles still running on Hong Kong’s roads?
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A few measures encouraging the use of more electric vehicles and recycling completely omit the most important climate action priorities for Hong Kong: the switch to 100 per cent clean energy; converting Hong Kong’s buildings, new and old, to near-zero emissions; protecting the city and its water and electricity supply systems from rising sea levels,  stronger typhoons and other weather extremes.

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The financial secretary noted in passing that revised climate action plans will come out later this year, driven by the Environmental Protection Department. Let’s be honest, this is neither the most powerful nor the most dynamic part of the Hong Kong government. To relegate such important policy to this department is implying that it is a specialist issue which can be bolted onto business as usual.

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In Singapore, the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Climate Change is headed by the senior minister and coordinating minister for national security, accompanied by the ministers for finance, foreign affairs, trade and industry, and National Development. The National Climate Change Secretariat sits in the prime minister’s office.

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