FT.com / World Reports / Hong Kong 2005 - Environment: Bad smells and smog from over the border

Environment: Bad smells and smog from over the border
By Victor Mallet
Published: September 19 2005 16:53 | Last updated: September 19 2005 16:53
There was a time when the clear, blue skies of Hong Kong抯 winter provided a welcome respite from the haze and rainstorms of the summer. Now the pattern is reversed: in the autumn, when southerly winds off the sea give way to the prevailing north-easterlies from the Chinese mainland, the sky turns brown and smoggy.
Hong Kong, as both beneficiary and victim of the Chinese industrial revolution centred on neighbouring Guangdong province, has a complicated relationship with its sub-tropical climate.
In some ways, this bustling but dirty city under an apron of smog is typical of the developing world. Ugly motorways and a mixture of landmark buildings and ill-planned concrete structures are scattered along the waterfront in the city centre, making it almost impossible for anyone to walk alongside the harbour that is, in theory, the tourist heart of Hong Kong.
Given the rank smell of the water, the harbour抯 inaccessibility to pedestrians may not be such a bad thing. Sewage treatment ?a matter neglected by the British colonial authorities until shortly before the territory抯 handover to China in 1997 ?is only now being expanded to cover the majority of Hong Kong抯 6.9m people. Smog and acid rain get worse year by year. Yet Hong Kong, as befits one of Asia抯 wealthiest cities and an archipelago of outstanding natural beauty, also has some of the most environmentally friendly policies and legislation in the world.
Nearly 40 per cent of the territory抯 land area is protected in country parks or other special zones. Some of Hong Kong抯 biggest companies this year established the Harbour Business Forum to promote the harbour as 揳 genuinely vibrant, accessible and sustainable world-class asset?
To help combat air pollution, Hong Kong five years ago became the first Asian city to introduce ultra-low sulphur diesel for vehicles. Almost all taxis now run on the relatively clean fuel of liquefied petroleum gas.


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Although many Hong Kong shops, restaurants and offices continue to waste electricity by chilling their occupants with excessive air-conditioning, the government has decreed that the temperature in its own offices should be set at a more balmy 25.5篊 to save energy.
The benefits of these efforts, however, are overwhelmed by the worsening pollution generated over the border. The latest and most spectacular phase of mainland China抯 industrial revolution, financed in large part by Hong Kong investors, began on Hong Kong抯 doorstep in the special economic zone of Shenzhen and the factories of Guangdong.
Planners believe that over the next few decades Hong Kong, Shenzhen and Guangzhou will begin to fuse into a megalopolis of 50m people, with incalculable environmental consequences for the Pearl River delta.
Hong Kong therefore finds itself in an unusual position as an advanced, post-industrial economy where some environmental indicators are deteriorating instead of improving.
This is a particular concern because the territory has already become a service economy dependent on sectors such as finance and tourism: neither expatriate bankers nor tourists are keen on pollution, and a few foreign residents have already begun muttering about moving their families to Singapore.
Of all the environmental difficulties facing Hong Kong, the most intractable is the state of the air. The dust and poisonous gases blown over from the mainland have not only exacerbated respiratory ailments and other health problems, they have also sharply reduced visibility ?obscuring the views for which Hong Kong was famous. According to an air pollution report published this year by CLSA, the investment bank, and Civic Exchange, a local think tank, the recently opened Hong Kong Disneyland will suffer from 揷onstant haze?
Sarah Liao, the Hong Kong environment secretary, who declined to be interviewed for this article, has recently tempered her initial optimism about reducing air pollution in co-operation with the Chinese authorities and admitted the severity of the problem.
Hong Kong and Guangdong agreed three years ago on a regional air quality management plan. They set targets for reducing output of pollutants such as sulphur dioxide by between 20 and 55 per cent by 2010, starting from a baseline of 1997.
Green pressure groups, however, complain that there has been no progress report since the deal was reached and say the Hong Kong government is feeble in its negotiations with mainland officials in both Guangdong and the capital Beijing.
Christine Loh, who heads Civic Exchange, wants the Pearl river delta ?which has several of the world抯 busiest ports, including Hong Kong ?to be declared a sulphur-control zone to limit the large amounts of pollution emitted by the thousands of ships burning dirty fuel oil.
揟he Pearl river delta has more shipping activity than anywhere else in the world, so we have to run the cleanest ports,?she says.
Even on its own territory, Ms Loh argues, the Hong Kong government is unwilling to set an example. Disneyland, in which the government has a majority stake, has been allowed to run its nightly firework shows without the smoke reduction technology the company uses in California.
In the meantime, Hong Kong is expected to face a further worsening of its air quality, especially since electricity shortages in Guangdong have been forcing factories to burn fuel for their own, inefficient generators.
In winter, it is only during Chinese New Year ?when factories close for a holiday ?that the people of Hong Kong can be guaranteed the clear skies of the past.
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