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Our News
Four Opportunities to Make Hong Kong Asia’s Most Sustainable City
There is only one planet we live on. We are entirely reliant on this single planet to produce all the natural resources we need for our continued existence. But for years, mankind has over-consumed these resources. This year, on 24 April the Earth passed a grim milestone: Hong Kong Overshoot Day. Its significance? If everyone in the world lived the way we do in Hong Kong, the world would have used up its entire natural resource “budget” for 2016 by that day – less than four months into the year. From 24 April onwards, we would be running a natural resource deficit.
Today, several signs of overshoot can be seen around the globe: carbon accumulation in the atmosphere is exacerbating climate change, while the depletion of fisheries and deforestation is translating into soaring food and commodity costs. These signs will start to appear more frequently in the near future.
Being a major consumption centre and a regional trading hub, Hong Kong definitely has a role to create positive change – not just in our city, but throughout the Asia-Pacific region. There are at least four major areas where the Hong Kong government has the opportunity to accelerate its sustainability efforts.
The first opportunity is something the Hong Kong government is working on right now: the city’s first Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (BSAP), which will be published later this year.
Despite Hong Kong’s relatively small population, we have a large impact on global biodiversity. Our huge appetite for seafood means Hong Kong is ranked second in Asia and seventh globally in terms of per capita seafood consumption. We currently import seafood from over 170 countries and territories around the world. We are also the world’s shark fin capital, handling about half of the global trade in shark fin. Our use of paper and timber products is considerable, but as much as 30 per cent by volume of wood-based products on the Hong Kong market may be made from illegal timber. Hong Kong’s consumption of meat, particularly beef, is increasing – leading to more greenhouse gas emissions and intensifying climate change, one of the major threats to global biodiversity.
Within the BSAP, there are multiple opportunities: we can impose stronger regulations on the trade of threatened wildlife species; promote sustainable production and consumption through the use of internationally recognized eco-labels and other credible sources like WWF-Hong Kong’s Seafood Guide; and fix legal loopholes and set up a stronger legal framework to stop the trade in illegal wildlife products.
The second opportunity comes through the Council for Sustainable Development (SDC), a body tasked with investigating how we can promote the sustainable use of biological resources such as seafood, timber and paper. After learning from overseas governments and soliciting local stakeholders’ views, SDC will issue the relevant paper for 3-month public consultation in June, and submit its full recommendations to government by the end of this year. Heated discussions held following the Consumer Council’s recently-published sustainable consumption report have resulted in a consensus: it is high time that the government took the lead by leveraging its huge purchasing and trading power to incentivize the sale and consumption of more sustainably-sourced products.
The state of ecological overshoot not only depletes the Earth’s life-support system – its natural capital – it also results in more carbon dioxide entering the atmosphere. Today, the largest component of our Ecological Footprint – 38.7 per cent – is related to carbon emissions produced either directly in Hong Kong, or from the carbon embedded in products that are manufactured elsewhere. In contrast, in 1961, the carbon component made up one quarter of humanity’s total Footprint.
Here comes the third opportunity: the recently-formed Interdepartmental Steering Committee on Climate Change chaired by the Chief Secretary held its first meeting in April. The Committee announced that by the end of this year, they will determine a carbon reduction target and a work plan for 2030. We are also looking forward to finally seeing the Steering Committee’s response to the Paris Agreement. Adopted by the international community in December 2015, the Agreement commits governments to setting up emissions targets which will cap global warming at well below 2°C, ideally at 1.5°C.
The Steering Committee is comprised of members from ten policy bureaus and three departments. The logical expectation is that the diversity of its membership will promote a coordinated, pan-governmental effort to stop climate change. The Committee can – and should – focus on major issues like regulating the sources of emissions, including power stations; requiring property developers to construct more energy-efficient buildings; improving urban planning; and supporting the scale-up of renewable energy resources.
To achieve the 2°C target, an additional 12 gigatonnes of greenhouse gas emissions need to be reduced globally by 2030. Hong Kong accounts for about 0.1 per cent of global emissions. To reduce our emissions proportionally, we would need to cut an extra 12 megatonnes of emissions; this is 29 per cent lower than the 2005 benchmark figure. To demonstrate our city’s determination to curb our carbon emissions, WWF encourages Hong Kong to join the Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance.
What about the fourth opportunity? This should come as no shock: for years, Hong Kong’s electricity market has been governed by the Scheme of Control (SOC) agreements. Complaints about the SOC agreements are numerous, particularly in relation to the lack of incentives for developing energy efficiency and renewable energy. These agreements are now under review, and according to the government they expect the renewal process to be completed in 2017. It is long past time to develop a new mechanism which will encourage energy efficiency and drive the creation of renewable energy installations – in particular solar and wind power which are highly suited to Hong Kong.
Globally, more than 60 countries including Wales, the United Arab Emirates, Ecuador and Japan, are actively involved in the research or adoption of action plans to address their own Ecological Footprints. Canada’s Vancouver has pledged to become the greenest city in the world by 2020, and has included the reduction of its Ecological Footprint as one of the top ten goals in its priority actions for 2011–2020.
Can Hong Kong become Asia’s most sustainable city? The Hong Kong public, in particular the younger generations, are acutely aware of the sustainability challenges we face. If acted upon, the four government opportunities identified above can help chart a new and more sustainable course for our city.
Humanity has taken the availability of natural resources for granted for too long. It is now time to wake up from the dream that the Earth can provide us with everything we want. With our eyes open, we can then, finally, begin to live within the Earth’s limits.
C.W. Cheung
Senior Head, Climate and Footprint Programmes
WWF-Hong Kong