Hong Kong not living up to its climate commitments under Paris Agreement, new report says
- The city’s targets for reducing emissions fall short of what is needed to ensure global temperatures rise no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, according to an NGO
- ‘This is a really serious index, which raises questions over whether we can really pull ourselves back from the brink,’ researcher says
Hong Kong’s current climate plan falls short of meeting its commitments under the 2015 Paris Agreement, according to a new NGO report, which also called on the city to ensure a fair transition to a low-carbon economy for the underprivileged.
The “Paris Watch: Hong Kong Climate Action Report”, released by the NGO CarbonCare InnoLab on Thursday, gave the city’s performance on environmental issues over the past year a grade of “C minus”.
Despite the government publishing several plans this year detailing how Hong Kong could achieve its goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2050, the group noted it had failed to address the more pressing 10-year window for ensuring global temperatures did not rise more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, as prescribed by United Nations scientists.
“If we don’t start aggressively making carbon cuts, we will reach 1.5 degrees really soon,” researcher Kevin Li Yuk-shing said. “This is a really serious index, which raises questions over whether we can really pull ourselves back from the brink.”
The Environment Bureau released its long-awaited climate action plan for 2050 this October, pledging to increase the share of renewable energy used for power generation to 10 per cent in the future, and to continue phasing out highly polluting coal.
CarbonCare InnoLab, like other green groups, welcomed the promises, but warned that poor planning and a lack of clear interim targets would frustrate residents and lead to the city failing to live up to its action plan.
