14 August 2005

This summer, the talk has all been of sunny fiscal forecasts and Hong Kong ’ s rosy economic outlook. In this climate of easy and untroubled optimism, it is all too easy to forget about the clouds brooding on our horizon – and one of the darkest and most menacing of those clouds is the very quality of our air.

However much we might want to wish it away, and however much the issue has been put to one side on the political agenda in recent months, you only have to look around Hong Kong to see the murky truth: Pollution simply hasn ’ t gone away.

The Liberal Party conducted a survey of what Hong Kong people think about pollution in July and found that people ’ s views on the way the problem is being dealt with is as dim as the view from Tsim Sha Tsui to Causeway Bay on a smoggy midsummer afternoon.

Asked to give Hong Kong a mark out of five for its air quality, one quarter of 800 interviewees gave it a score of zero and almost 70 per cent gave it a score below the pass mark of three.

Of the 30 per cent who gave Hong Kong a pass mark, most only gave it a score of three – the bare minimum pass mark.
The dismal scores were hardly a surprise when you consider that an alarming 65 per cent of people interviewed said they felt their health had suffered as a result of Hong Kong ’ s poor air quality.

It is an issue that should be at the very top of our political agenda, not least because – unlike so many of the issues that exercise the vocal chords of legislators – air quality is a problem that affects every single one of us. We breathe it, cough it and peer blinkingly through it every day.

It affects our businesses. It affects our workers and children ’ s health. It affects Hong Kong ’ s long-term outlook as a financial and economic hub. But despite the huffing and puffing that has been put into tackling it since the late 1990s, precious little has been achieved. Pollution has simply got demonstrably worse.

When Mr Donald Tsang stepped up to the post of Chief Executive in June, he quoted a survey by the Central Policy Unit as his basis for deciding on the priorities of his new administration.

He focussed on how the survey showed that economic and livelihood issues were the matters that concerned people most, but gave disappointingly little emphasis to the fact that improving our air quality ranked third in the list of priorities.

Hong Kong has been grappling with the issue of air pollution with varying degrees of resolve and seriousness. What is clear is that the measures taken so far have failed. Our survey shows people are frustrated with this failure and that if Mr Tsang is to fulfil his pledge to listen and to respond, he must convey a sense of urgency in dealing with this issue.

This is a process that is going to test cross-border sensibilities, and necessarily so. Eighty per cent of pollutants in Hong Kong come from the Pearl River Delta and the Hong Kong government must enhance its cooperation with the Guangdong government to control the sources of pollution.

Even though the Hong Kong and Guangdong governments have set up a regional air quality monitoring network for the Pearl River Delta earlier this year, they have still not released the results of their air quality monitoring so far. This is information we need to know.

In the Liberal Party believe this data should be made public soon. We also believe that exhaust monitoring standards should be unified across the region, and that the target of reducing pollutants by 2010 should be adhered to.

There are many years of work ahead to improve Hong Kong ’ s and the Pearl River Delta ’ s air quality. More stringent vehicle emission and fuel standards need to be imposed across the region, the successful experiment of LPG taxis in Hong Kong needs to be extended to Guangdong.

These are matters that must be approached not with trepidation and political pussy-footing, but with the determination and resolve that the grave concern of Hong Kong people merits.

Then there are the solutions that lie closer to home – the need to push Hong Kong ’ s two power companies CLP Power and Hongkong Electric to speed up environmental protection measures.

It is disappointing and unacceptable that the two power companies say they cannot achieve the target set for reducing pollutants by 2010, saying instead they will reach those targets maybe by 2011 or 2012. How can anyone take the Hong Kong government seriously when it presses Guangdong to achieve a target that it cannot even get its own power companies in Hong Kong to agree to?

CLP Power and Hongkong Electric have spelled out plans for respective capital expenditure on infrastructure improvements of $24 billion and $12 billion dollars, part of which they say will be dedicated to environmental protection measures.

Some people say that expenditure on environmental protection measures should not be regarded as fixed assets and not taken into account as part of the permitted rate of return, so as to control the profit increases of the two companies.

I do not agree with that view. Environmental protection measures are part of the electricity generation infrastructure and should be calculated as part of the permitted rate of return. If the system would changes, it would take away the incentive for the power companies to take eco-friendly measures.

I believe that under the existing Scheme of Control Agreements which expire in 2008, this expenditure should remain at the rate of 13.5 per cent permitted rate of return. After 2008, it should be calculated under the new permitted rate of return which I believe should be set in the region of eight to nine per cent.

In return for this generous leeway and support, the onus is on the power companies to take up the challenge and reduce harmful emissions for the good of themselves and for the good of Hong Kong.

The rest of us, meanwhile, must press for the quality of our air to be put at the very top of Mr Tsang ’ s agenda. Our businesses, our quality of life, our health, our families and our city's very future depend on it.