Environmental authorities to unveil status report on Hong Kong government's actions to tackle climate change

Report will contain information from many government departments on environmental issues and show what they have been doing

Paris climate summit 2015

Ernest Kao

Published: 12:00am, 21 Oct 2015

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The environmental authorities are to unveil a new "status report" on the government's mitigation, adaptation and resilience-building measures against climate change in the coming weeks.

Undersecretary for the environment Christine Loh Kung-wai said the report would, for the first time, provide the community with a single document outlining what government departments are doing to anticipate the adverse effects of climate change.

READ MORE: Low-carbon investments: Hong Kong businesses can capitalise on Paris climate talks, experts say

"We have yet to put out a [single] document where the community can see all the continuing work government departments have done so far on adaptation," she said.

It is understood the report will have input from several key departments including the Observatory, which will provide a range of climate change science and data.

Both global warming and effects of local urbanization contribute to the warming, with the latter estimated to contribute up to 50% of the warming. Extremely hot days have become more frequent. Photo: Nora Tam

"It's not a blueprint for the future but a status report that will tell you what we've done on adaptation, mitigation and resilience building," Loh said.

She remained tight-lipped on content but said the document would involve "many government departments" as well as input from important players such as the public utilities.

Extreme rainfall events have become more frequent. The hourly rainfall record at the Hong Kong Observatory headquarters was broken several times in the last few decades, whereas it used to take several decades to break the record in the past. Photo: Sam Tsang

The release of the document will come a year after government departments presented their adaptation and resilience measures at an international climate conference - which included enlarging sea walls to deal with rising sea levels and measures to prevent landslides, floods and storm surges associated with increased rainfall under different climate change scenarios.

"With this, we think we would've at least given … a reasonably full picture of where we stand and it will be easier for the community to talk about going forward," she told participants at a climate change forum organised by the Business Environment Council, French, German and British consulates, and the European Union's local office, yesterday.

Hong Kong is being urged to do more to prevent climate change

Loh said there was a need for Hong Kong to implement more effective systems to measure the benefits of different sustainable development projects.

"If we are going to improve a drainage system to reduce the risk of flooding in Hong Kong, how do we measure the gains from it? If we are more water efficient, what is the carbon benefit?" she said.

WWF-Hong Kong's director of conservation, Gavin Edwards, said Hong Kong needed to start coming up with longer-term targets and a climate policy plan looking beyond 2020.

He added there was much more room for improvement in terms of renewable energy and energy efficiency.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Red-letter day for climate change

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