Hong Kong plans to get mainland electricity without counting cost in carbon emissions

As the city ponders drawing a third of its electricity from the mainland power grid, it also plans to disassociate itself from the resulting carbon emissions, environmental authorities say.

Carbon emissions related to the imported electricity would be left out of the city's emissions count, the Environmental Protection Department said yesterday. It is unclear if that is common practice when transferring energy across borders.

The shift of responsibility should help the city achieve runaway success in its carbon reduction targets, set at 50 to 60 per cent below the 2005 emissions level. Frances Yeung Hoi-shan, from Friends of the Earth, said environmental officials were "playing tricks" in seeking to meet the targets.

Dr Luk Bing-lam, chairman of the Nuclear Society and a member of the Environment Bureau's energy advisory committee, added: "This is self-defeating. The whole thing is about reducing emissions, but it turns out that the emissions will be 'shifted' to the mainland."

All the electricity the city now gets from across the border is nuclear energy.

Under fuel-mix proposals for 2023, mainland company China Southern Power Grid may export up to 15 billion kilowatt-hours a year to Hong Kong - an option that Secretary for the Environment Wong Kam-sing has claimed can help the city outperform its targets.