Opinion | Hongkongers have ‘great ideas’? Then let the people speak, Mr Lee

School has started for some of our students and, by next week, almost all Hong Kong students will be back in their classrooms. It has been quite an extraordinary summer, in that it finally resembled “normality”, post-Covid.

We saw families taking holidays again and the foot traffic at Hong Kong International Airport was sustained throughout the summer. Cathay Pacific carried more than 2 million passengers in July, a 15 per cent increase on the same month last year. Hong Kong’s economy expanded 3.3 per cent year on year in the second quarter. Hopefully, all that means better days are ahead.

And then there’s the surprise birth of panda twins, now under the expert care of Ocean Park – on top of the central government’s gift of two pandas, which are due to arrive next month.

The Summer Olympics in Paris brought back some crowds to our shopping centres. More importantly, it provided a rare opportunity to bring the community together to cheer on our athletes. Hong Kong’s Olympians made history with four medals, keeping us on the edge of our seats deep into the night.

The public had the chance to greet them during an open-top bus parade last week. The key now is whether we can sustain that momentum by building community spirit and supporting the development of sports in the city beyond the summer.

But something that seems here to stay is climate change and the extreme weather it brings. This summer was extraordinarily hot; we had our hottest summer solstice in more than four decades.