CHINA: Hong Kong's pollution problem threatens its position as Asia's World City with the territory's air quality now amongst the worst in Asia

Record ID: 216972

  • Title: CHINA: Hong Kong's pollution problem threatens its position as Asia's World City with the territory's air quality now amongst the worst in Asia
  • Date: 28th June 2012
  • Summary: VARIOUS OF BOATS ON VICTORIA HARBOUR VARIOUS OF AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, ENVIRONMENTAL STEERING COMMITTEE GROUP LEADER, EVAN AUYANG, (SOUNDBITE) (English) AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, ENVIRONMENTAL STEERING COMMITTEE GROUP LEADER, EVAN AUYANG, SAYING: "The truth is that when a certain person or business that decides whether or not they want to headquarter in Hong
  • Embargoed: 13th July 2012 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: China
  • Country: China
  • Topics: Business,Health,Industry
  • Reuters ID: LVA43EAEIJ14DDK2VTVFZ4MVKUV2
  • Story Text: As Hong Kong strives to consolidate its reputation as a leading financial centre and major offshore conduit for China's wealth, the smog often enveloping its skyscrapers continues to exact a heavy cost on its pro-business credentials and competitiveness.
    Foreign business chambers and experts say the city's outgoing chief executive Donald Tsang has failed to adequately address a problem that costs close to $6 billion dollars in tangible and intangible losses each year, with Hong Kong's air quality now amongst the worst in Asia.
    Tsang's high profile pledge in 2006 to bring back blue skies with the quip "Clean Air for a Cool Hong Kong!" has failed under a haze that smothers Hong Kong's edge as an expatriate hub.
    Nearly a quarter of businesses polled by the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong say they have experienced difficulties in recruiting professionals last year due to the local living environment, while 74 percent of respondents say they perceive a lack of substantial improvement in overall air quality in Hong Kong during 2011.
    "The truth is that when a certain person or business that decides whether or not they want to headquarter in Hong Kong, it's a basket of factors, environment being one of them. Now if you talk about make or break, would they make it on environment, we would say typically not. However, when people exit Hong Kong they decide; 'I can't stand it anymore,' or 'I don't want to be here anymore', the environment is typically one of the primary factors. And that's the important part we really have to focus on," said American Chamber Of Commerce, Environmental Steering Committee Group Leader, Evan Auyang.
    Despite years of lobbying by green groups, Hong Kong still doesn't comply with World Health Organization standards for PM 2.5 pollutants or international protocol for marine pollution.
    Charity worker, Suzanne Brucks, moved back to Berlin in 2011 after two years in Hong Kong, citing pollution as one of the main reasons for her leaving.
    "Since I've been back in Berlin I haven't had those problems. I have no respiratory problems, no coughing, no headaches, I don't feel sick and I'm absolutely certain it has to do with the, sort of, fresh air in Berlin. I mean it's as fresh as it gets in a big city. But it makes a huge difference. A huge difference to Hong Kong," said Brucks, who was back in Hong Kong visiting friends.
    Hong Kong is burdened by both local and regional pollutants: roadside fumes, marine traffic exhaust from its busy ports, and smog wafting in from tens of thousands of factories in the neighboring Pearl River Delta, China's manufacturing heartland in southern China.
    Though certain pollutants including sulphur dioxide and respirable suspended particulates have dropped over the past decade, ozone levels last year hit a record high, while roadside nitrogen dioxide levels worsened in densely populated districts privy to concentrated levels of street-level vehicle emissions.
    Chung Tang, 74, a roadside newspaper vendor for the past 26 years complained the air had become worse in the last decade and that a statutory ban on idling engines introduced in 2011 was just talk.
    "The government really doesn't do anything. The Environmental Protection Department never does their job fully either. They're useless. They don't do what they should do or regulate what they should regulate. They always say you should turn off the engine when you stop a car. It's all advertisement. But do they enforce it? Do they punish people? No, not at all," said Tang.
    The Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macau governments announced a regional plan this week to tackle pollution and reduce marine emissions in the Pearl River Delta waters.
    The Hong Kong administration is also planning a raft of incentives to address pollution.
    With a new gas pipeline from mainland nearing completion late this year or early 2013, the Environmental Protection Department says 50 percent of local power-generating plants will run on natural gas.
    Other measures include a requirement for ultra low sulphur diesel vehicles in 2002, a recent tightening of emissions standards for newly registered vehicles, and future plans to equip 3,000 of the city's buses with cleaner engines.
    "By the year 2014 we should take the WHO air quality objectives as our new air objective guidelines and we are going to introduce 22 measures in order to meet these targets. But we need to do more," said Andrew Lai, a deputy director of Hong Kong's Environmental Protection Department.
    But the efforts have failed to quell critics, who say that the city has fallen short of its promise to update standards and lacks mandatory measures for swifter change in the city and regionally.
    Health experts say that between 2007 and 2010, an average of 1200 people per year have died from heart and respiratory causes, linked in part, to poor air.
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