|
Letter to the Editor of the South China Morning Post dated 20 September 2005 - Response to the editorial on Hong Kong's air quality problem ("Unwelcome reminder of need to clean our air")
I refer to your leader "Unwelcome reminder of need to clean our air" (September 14). The government shares your concern about the severity of this problem, and understands the urgency the public attaches to it. We share much of our pollution problem with Guangdong because we come under the same air shed. A common problem clearly demands shared responsibility, not allocation of blame.
The Hong Kong and Guangdong governments reached a consensus in April 2002 to reduce by 2010, on a best endeavour basis, the regional emissions of four key pollutants, based on 1997, 40 per cent on sulphur dioxide, 20 per cent on nitrogen oxides and 55 per cent on both respirable suspended particulates and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). To achieve these, the two governments drew up a Pearl River Delta air quality management plan in December 2003.
Measures to deal with the air pollution problem locally require cleaner fuel to be used by taxis and public light buses. We require power plants to maximise the use of natural gas for power generation. And no new coal-fired generation units have been allowed since 1997. We have also capped the sulphur content of coal in power generation at 1 per cent and asked companies to install facilities to reduce sulphurisation and nitrogen oxide emissions. We encourage them to test the commercial feasibility of renewable energy.
As a result of these measures, the number of smoky vehicles on the road has gone down by 80 per cent from 1999 to 2004, and the sulphur dioxide, nitrogen-oxide and particulate levels measured at roadside have shown substantive decreases since 1999. I state this not to claim any credit, as the annual average of these pollutants measured at general monitoring stations shows no improvement over the same period, which reflects the impact of regional pollution. We must not give up. The number of hours of the air pollution index exceeding 100 has been reduced from 500 early last year to about 200 early this year.
We will continue to reinforce existing measures with more collaboration with Guangdong. We plan to upgrade fuels and introduce new technologies. We will impose a cap on emissions from power plants in the course of licence renewal. The recent financial plans of the power plants are not sufficient for achieving the 2010 emission reduction targets. We have made it clear to them that the consideration of these plans does not mean that we have accepted the existing emission reduction projects as adequate.
In conjunction with Guangdong, we are drawing up a pilot emissions trading scheme for power plants in the delta region. We aim to present the scheme to them late next year. We are setting up a joint regional air quality monitoring network with Guangdong, comprising 16 monitoring stations in the delta region. Guangdong has also implemented a package of measures to reduce pollution from its sources. We shall continue to work patiently to see through the measures we have set in train and persevere in our effort to build up public support in combating the problem.
K K Kwok
Premanent Secretary for the Environment,
Transport and Works (Environment)
|
