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Opinion | Hong Kong plans and studies while climate change accelerates. Are we acting quickly enough?
- Recent record heatwaves, including in Hong Kong, should have hammered home the deadly and immediate impact of climate change
- Yet the city’s action plan for 2050 seems remarkably relaxed, and measures taken so far are often inadequate and even downright questionable
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So here we are. The heating is on. No longer are we predicting that global warming may occur, with experts cautiously saying this or that weather event just might be attributable to climate change.
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This summer, northern hemisphere heatwaves left a slew of records – several by margins that were startling even for seasoned climate scientists. Hong Kong was also hot, with last month the hottest since records began in 1884.
While it takes time for the full impact of heat and droughts to become known, the two flash floods that hit Kentucky, US, last month and killed at least 37 people, served to emphasise the consequences and perils of climate change.
This might really be the time to act, including by making good on promises made in high-profile meetings such as the much-hyped 2015 Paris Agreement.
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UK and Europe swelter as record-breaking temperatures grip the continent amid heatwave
UK and Europe swelter as record-breaking temperatures grip the continent amid heatwave
Sadly, the Climate Action Tracker map shows little progress towards the globally agreed aim of holding warming well below 2 degrees Celsius. The black and red colours for countries with “critically insufficient” and “highly insufficient” climate action predominate; nowhere is green for the action compatible with the Paris accord.
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