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Hong Kong environmental issues
OpinionComment
Edwin Lau
Edwin Lau

Opinion | Hong Kong’s climate change goals need regulations with teeth to succeed

  • Just launching action plans or road maps is not enough if there are no clear, binding standards to keep the government and major carbon emitters accountable
  • A regulatory approach would help make climate change pledges stick and aid other goals such as improving buildings’ energy efficiency

Reading Time:3 minutes
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Environmental activists (left to right) Ringo Mak, Ng Hon-lam and Thierry Leung gather outside the government headquarters in Admiralty on September 28 to appeal to the Environment Bureau to act on climate change. Photo: Dickson Lee
Edwin Lau
In her 2020 policy address, Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor pledged to push Hong Kong to become carbon neutral before 2050. Almost a year later, and just two days after Lam delivered her final policy address of this term, Environment Secretary Wong Kam-sing unveiled the long-awaited Carbon Action Plan 2050.
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It is not hard for Wong to come up with a comprehensive action plan when the target date is almost 30 years away. He and other principal officials will have left their positions long before then. Wong has yet to say how the actions set out in the plan will be delivered according to their various timelines.

Failure to meet existing targets – such as the per capita municipal solid waste disposal daily rate, set in the Hong Kong Blueprint of Sustainable Use of Resources 2013-2022 – throws doubt on the Environment Bureau’s capability in this respect.

What is most needed are climate-focused regulations for governing such policy action plans. Future administrations would then be able to examine and announce transparently whether the targets had been met, based on the statutory requirements instead of the action plan.

Sweden was rated the top performer in 2019 and 2020 by the Climate Change Performance Index, an independent tool to track climate protection and performance of 57 nations and the European Union.

04:56

Hong Kong could slash carbon emissions 70% with more ambitious goals, says former observatory head

Hong Kong could slash carbon emissions 70% with more ambitious goals, says former observatory head

Merely launching action plans or road maps is not enough to remain the top performer. Sweden enacted the Climate Act in 2018, requiring the government to present an annual climate report in its Budget Bill.

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