Letters | How to make Hong Kong’s 2050 zero-carbon dream a reality
- Climate emergency is a complex issue requiring a fundamentally interdisciplinary approach
- Decarbonisation measures for Hong Kong require cross-bureau and cross-departmental targets or, ideally, a dedicated climate change authority
Moreover, the Environment Bureau is limited in its ability to regulate public transport, without the remit to allocate resources, coordinate across bureaus and departments, and set decarbonisation targets in the public transport sector. This renders it unable to spark quick and far-reaching changes beyond its departmental responsibilities.
Decarbonisation measures for Hong Kong require cross-bureau and cross-departmental targets or, ideally, a dedicated climate change authority. The government has plenty of good international references for effective and efficient climate policy and governance, where intra-government collaboration is recognised as key to developing successful decarbonisation policies.
The central government has taken a bottom-up approach by encouraging cities to formulate long and short-term climate strategies and action plans. All units under city-level government are bound to achieve their key performance targets. This encourages individual departments to take responsibility for decarbonising in their respective areas of focus.
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China vows carbon neutrality by 2060 during one-day UN biodiversity summit
Further afield, the United Kingdom’s 2008 Climate Change Act was the world’s first long-term, legally binding framework law to address the crisis. The law provided a five-year carbon budget to motivate the government to develop cost-effective, long-term solutions. There are independent committees monitoring progress and serving as policy signals to markets for low-carbon transition.