Hong Kong’s new Extinction Rebellion chapter looks to turn up the heat on the government over climate change

A small yet passionate arm of the global climate-protection movement Extinction Rebellion has taken root in Hong Kong, calling on the government to reduce net carbon emissions to zero by 2025.

The group, currently comprising about 40 expats and locals, said they were planning a sustained campaign of peaceful protests and demonstrations across the city.

“We are here to sound the fire alarm. This is a climate emergency. The government needs to act now,” said Olivier Delalande, a founding member of the movement’s Hong Kong chapter.

Extinction Rebellion made global headlines a fortnight ago by occupying vast swathes of central London, paralysing public transport and even threatening to shut down Heathrow Airport in a bid to force the British government to declare a climate emergency.

The global movement echoes other climate campaigns like the Fridays for Future student strikes inspired by Swedish schoolgirl Greta Thunberg and the Green New Deal called for by the US congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

A French national who came to the city to work in a bank 10 years ago, Delalande was inspired by the movements abroad to launch the environmental pressure group a month ago.

“We are a brand-new, democratic movement with no leaders and no hierarchy. Our members come from all walks of life, and we all work on a voluntary basis and don’t take donations,” he said.

Along with eight fellow campaigners, they held their first demonstration on May 4, a silent “die-in” outside the Citywalk mall in Tsuen Wan, to simulate the deadly consequences of climate inaction.

Among their key demands are that the government “tell the truth” by declaring a climate emergency in Hong Kong, the curbing of greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2025, and having the convention of citizens’ assemblies set environmental policies to tackle the “climate catastrophe”.

Reducing net emissions to zero would in practice mean attaining a balance between polluting activities and actions which remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere – planting trees, for example.

In the first half of this year, the statutory Council for Sustainable Development will carry out a public consultation on the long-term decarbonisation strategy for the city up to 2050. It will hand its recommendations to the Environment Bureau by the end of this year.

The government’s current climate change action plan, announced in 2017, includes slashing annual carbon emissions from about six tonnes per person to about 3.5 tonnes by 2030. But the environmental group said that was not enough.

In March a group of students, mostly from international schools, skipped a day of school and marched in Central in response to the global school strike call. Audrey Chan, a 19-year-old studying at university in Canada who recently joined Extinction Rebellion, said both Hong Kong groups could work together to achieve a common goal.

“We endorse their actions. Students skipping a day of school to protest in the interest of climate action is also a kind of education. They should not be penalised for it,” Chan said.

Unlike its Western counterparts, the group in Hong Kong said it was not contemplating large-scale civil disobedience – learning the lessons of the pro-democracy Occupy movement five years ago, which drew a heavy police response and led to many prison sentences, but was ultimately unsuccessful.

Its members said they would keep the pressure on the government and big polluters by staging more sit-ins at suitable locations, which could include the airport and Kai Tak Cruise Terminal, which they said were guilty of contributing to emissions of things like carbon dioxide and sulphur dioxide.

“We are just a small, one-month-old group consisting of 40-odd people. There is no point getting ourselves arrested or causing great disruption to the public through civil disobedience,” said Delalande. “So we will identify some targets for direct action to raise public awareness.”

He was optimistic about public support for the movement, saying: “We breathe the same air every day. Everybody can relate to global warming and air pollution.”

But Lam Chiu-ying, Hong Kong Observatory’s former director and convenor of the support group on long-term decarbonisation strategy under the council, said setting what he called unachievable targets, like cutting net greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2025, could be counterproductive.

“If you push the fear factor too hard and propose unattainable solutions, people’s instinctive reaction is to give up on even trying,” he said.

“It is also misguided to point the finger of blame solely at the government, since solving global warming requires a root-and-branch overhaul of people’s way of life, like driving and using air conditioning.”

Delalande admitted his group’s demands may not be achievable, but made no apologies for that.

“Extinction Rebellion is not about what is possible, but what is necessary,” he said. “These urgent actions are absolutely necessary.”

Leung Wing-mo, spokesman for another climate advocacy group, 350 Hong Kong, said balance was key to such groups’ strategies.

“There are three groups of people when it comes to the issue of global warming: the climate change believers; the deniers; and the people in the middle,” he said.

“For any movement to succeed, we need to win over the support of people in the middle ground, which probably make up 70 to 80 per cent of the city’s population. They need to be really careful not to alienate that group with radical actions.”

A spokeswoman for the Environment Bureau said the government attached great importance to combating climate change, adding it encouraged all sectors of the community, in particular young people, to actively participate in the council’s public engagement exercise.