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Pearl River Delta

but, we still need a third runway By the time it would be built the PRD will be an overpriced ghost town

Nov 9th, 2011
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20,000 factories on the brink of crisis

Bonnie Chen

Wednesday, November 09, 2011

More than 20,000 Hong Kong-owned factories in the Pearl River Delta may close or downsize because the Guangdong government is ready to raise the minimum wage once again in January, the Federation of Hong Kong industries warns.

Federation vice chairman Stanley Lau Chin-ho said provincial authorities are considering raising the minimum wage by 18-20 percent in January. The base wage was raised in March this year.

Overseas orders have fallen 5-30 percent and will decline further, Lau said, putting at risk 30 percent of 60,000 Hong Kong-owned factories in the delta.

The federation has now written to Guangdong authorities seeking delays in the implementation of the next increase in the base wage.

Chinese Manufacturers’ Association of Hong Kong vice president Johnny Yeung Chi-hung is holding out hope that wages will be adjusted upward in the second half of next year in stages, with a single-digit increase each time.

“Since 2009 the minimum wage increased at a double-digit rate yearly,” he said. “The latest rise was in March 2011. It was the worst time as many companies needed to settle outstanding payments.”

Lau said conditions are worse than during the 2008 financial tsunami, and he urged the SAR government to relaunch the special loan guarantee scheme introduced in 2008.

A government spokeswoman noted that while the scheme was wound up in 2010, the SME Financing Guarantee Scheme with 50-70 percent loan guarantees was launched in January this year.

To ride out the difficulties, Lau suggests that manufacturers move away from labor-intensive operations, enhance brand-building efforts and explore markets in emerging economies. He also points to selling more products in the domestic market.

In his policy address, Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen proposed a HK$1 billion fund to help business explore the mainland market. Implementation details are being drawn up with the intention of applying for funding approval from the Legislative Council in the first half of next year.

Delta bridge can go ahead as legal challenge ends

Oct 26th, 2011
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South China Morning Post – 26 Oct 2011

Deadline passes for final appeal challenge with no fresh instructions for plaintiff’s lawyer

The legal challenge to construction of a bridge across the Pearl River estuary to Macau and Zhuhai is over.

Yesterday’s deadline for the plaintiff, 66-year-old Tung Chung resident Chu Yee-wah, to take the case to the city’s top court passed without her lawyers receiving any instruction to do so.

Chu, a public housing tenant, secured a judicial review of the Hong Kong- Zhuhai-Macau bridge, arguing that the government’s environmental impact assessment of the project failed to meet its own standards for gauging the likely effect on local pollution levels. Her lawyers said the assessment should have included a study of the estuary environment’s condition if the HK$83 billion bridge was not built. The bridge will start from a point on Lantau island near Tung Chung.

The case was upheld in the Court of First Instance but overturned on appeal by the government in September. It cost the Legal Aid department HK$1.4 million and added an estimated HK$6.5 billion to the cost of building the bridge, according to the Transport and Housing Bureau.

Alan Wong Hok-ming, a lawyer for Chu, said he had heard nothing from her before yesterday’s deadline. “We have told her the legal considerations in the case and it was up to her to decide,” he said.

Chu had been quoted as saying that she regretted launching the challenge.

The government will now be able to press ahead with the project.

An environmentalist said the case had raised public awareness of the complex assessment process and opened an avenue for a review of the law. “The judicial review arose from some grey areas in the law that have to be looked at from a bigger perspective, given that the impact assessment law has been in operation for more than 13 years,” Edwin Lau Che-feng, a member of the Advisory Council on the Environment, said.

The council wants a meeting of experts in the field to identify areas for improvement, in particular how to increase transparency and public participation in assessments.

Lawmakers will now discuss a request from the government for funding to build the bridge and related works. Officials have put the cost of a border post, to be built on 130 hectares reclaimed from the sea, at HK$33 billion and say a link road will cost HK$16 billion.

The bridge was not the only project affected by April’s ruling in favour of Chu. Environmental impact assessment reports on a planned waste incinerator and the Sha Tin-Central rail link have been submitted to the environment chief for reconsideration.

chifai.cheung@scmp.com

The importance of environmental impact assessment reports: the Hong Kong Zhuhai Macau Bridge judicial review

Aug 28th, 2011
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http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=16334bb9-a9d4-4be5-945f-4d0c5b3177d9

In April this year, the Court of First Instance (“CFI”) handed down its decision in a judicial review case against the Director of Environmental Protection (the “Director”), quashing her decision to approve the Environmental Impact Assessment Reports (“EIA Reports”) and issue the environmental permits for the Hong Kong Zhuhai Macau Bridge (“HKZMB”) projects.

The Court ruled that the absence of ‘baseline’ environmental reports rendered the EIA Reports not compliant with the Technical Memorandum (“TM”) and Study Briefs (“SB”s), which set out the requirements for the EIA Reports. As the EIA Reports did not provide meet the necessary requirements, the Director did not have the power to approve the EIA Reports nor environmental permits, as approved in late 2009. The decision is a further example of the rigorous interpretation of the Environmental Impact Assessment Ordinance (“Ordinance”).

The decision has caused substantial delays to the HKZMB projects and is said to have had a knock-on effect on other major projects. This is because the decision was based on an interpretation of the purpose and requirements of the Ordinance and the TM, which will apply to all designated projects.

Prior to this decision, the general approach was for EIA Reports to measure the cumulative impact on the environment, and ensure that such impacts fell below the maximum allowable levels. The argument before the Court was that the Director should measure the impact from the baseline position and then decide whether that level of impact is acceptable or not.

The Director lodged an appeal against the CFI decision, and appeal was heard this week. We are now waiting to see whether the Court of Appeal will uphold the CFI decision to require baseline reports to be included in all future EIA Reports.

What is an EIA Report?

The Ordinance requires all “designated projects” within the meaning of s.4 of the Ordinance to obtain environmental permits before construction commences. In order to obtain the permit, the applicant or project proponent must prepare an EIA Report containing an analysis of the likely environmental impact of the project.

To start the process, the project proponent must submit a project profile that complies with the TM to the Director and advertise the project to the public. The TM is standard to all designated projects and is issued by the Secretary for the Environment pursuant to the Ordinance.

The Director will inform the Advisory Council on the Environment (“ACE”) about the project profile and ACE or any other person may comment on the project profile. The Director may ask the project proponent for further information as required. The Director will then issue to the project proponent an environmental impact assessment study brief (the “SB” referred above), which is particular to that project.

In accordance with the requirements of the SB and the TM, the project proponent prepares the EIA Report, which is delivered to the Director for approval. The Director then makes a provisional decision whether or not to approve the EIA Report and, if approved, the EIA Report is published for public inspection. Again at this stage, members of the public or ACE may comment on the EIA Report. The Director may call for further information as a result of any comments.

Once the Director is satisfied with the content of the EIA Report, she must approve, approve with conditions or reject the EIA Report.

The final stage is the application for the environmental permit, which the Director may issue subject to any conditions she thinks fit, having considered a number of factors including the EIA Report.

A designated project may not be commenced without the necessary environmental permit.

Why did the CFI find the HKZMB EIA Report deficient?

In the HKZMB case, Chu Yee Wah (“Ms Chu”), a resident of a public housing estate in Tung Chung, brought judicial review proceedings seeking orders to quash the Director’s decisions to grant approval for the EIA Reports and environmental permits for the construction of the HKZMB. Broadly speaking, Ms Chu alleged that (i) the EIA Reports did not comply with the requirements of the TM and SBs, and (ii) the decisions of the Director in approving the EIA Reports and environmental permits were irrational or Wednesbury unreasonable.

At trial, Ms Chu sought to challenge the decisions on seven grounds (which we will discuss briefly below) but succeeded on the first ground only. Nevertheless, her success on the first ground of challenge was sufficient for the Director’s decisions to be quashed.

The Requirement for a Baseline Report

Ms Chu’s first and successful ground of challenge was that the TM and SBs require the EIA Reports to provide a quantitative ‘stand-alone’ analysis of the project environmental conditions without the HKZMB project in place, otherwise known as a ‘baseline report’.

It was accepted by both sides that the EIA Reports covered only the cumulative environmental impacts (i.e. the conditions with the projects in place) and no baseline report. The question at hand was whether the baseline report was in fact required, there being no explicit requirement for such a report but only broad principles and general wording in the TM.

While the CFI Judge accepted the Director’s arguments that there was no explicit requirement for a baseline report, he adopted a purposive approach to interpreting the Ordinance. He referred to the case of Shiu Wing Steel v Director of Environmental Protection 2006 9 HKCFAR 478, where the Court of Final Appeal held that “the purpose of the [Ordinance] as declared in its long title governs its interpretation and also that its purpose of protecting the environment must inform the meaning attributed to the TM and SB, being instruments created under its authority“. [Hogan Lovells acted for the intervener in these proceedings.] The CFI decided that, without the baseline report, it would not be possible to assess the environmental impact of the project and consequently not be possible to propose suitable mitigation measures to minimise the pollution, residual and cumulative effects: “it is only by knowing the starting point […] that one is able to measure that footprint“.

For the Director, the following caveats were cited from R (on the application of Blewitt) v Derbyshire CC [2003] Env. LR 29, “… it is an unrealistic counsel of perfection to expect that an applicant’s environmental statement will always contain the ‘full information’ about the environmental impact of a project […] it would be of no advantage to anyone concerned with the development process […] if environmental projects were drafted on a purely ‘defensive’ basis, mentioning every possible scrap of environmental information just in case someone might consider [it] significant at a later stage […]”. While the CFI Judge agreed that it was sensible to apply these caveats, he maintained that this was not a sufficient reason to disregard the need to provide an EIA Report which properly identifies the scale of the environmental changes resultant from a particular project.

Accordingly, the absence of a stand alone analysis in the EIA Reports meant that they did not comply with the TM and SBs and that the Director’s decisions to approve them and the environmental permits were quashed.

What were the Unsuccessful Grounds of Challenge?

As noted above, Ms Chu challenged the Director on seven grounds but was unsuccessful on grounds (ii) – (vii).

Grounds (ii) – (v) also related to the methodologies followed in the EIA Reports. These were challenges to (ii) the analytical model selected to assess air quality (the PATH model) and lack of explanatory data presented in the EIA Reports to verify the results; (iii) the assessment year chosen to represent the worst case scenario; and (iv-v) the lack of assessment of ozone and sulphur dioxide.

In relation to the choice of the PATH model, the CFI Judge held that the explanatory data were not required for the EIA Reports and if desired, the data could have been requested during the public consultation period. In relation to grounds (iii) – (v), the CFI Judge held that the SBs as drafted allowed the project proponent discretion to decide on these factors, so long as the decision could be reasonably explained. In this case, those decisions were found not to be unreasonable.

Grounds (vi) – (vii) were that the Director had failed in her duty to consider the impact on public health and the health risk posed by pollutants such as toxic air pollutants and fine suspended particulates (which are currently excluded from the present Air Quality Objectives (“AQO”s) before issuing the environmental permits. As there was no evidence that the projected air quality would breach the AQOs, the Director had acted reasonably in relying on the AQOs to assess the impact on public health – the AQOs being the Government’s current policy for acceptable level of air pollutants, taking into account public health.

What Does this Mean for Future EIA Reports?

The tangible result of the HKZMB case (subject to the outcome of the appeal) is that all EIA Reports must now contain a baseline report, as a starting point to assess the environmental impact of any project.

However, when considering whether an EIA Report needs to mention “every possible scrap of environmental information just in case someone might consider [it] significant at a later stage“, project proponents may seek some comfort in the Court’s rejection of the other six grounds of challenge, which were dependent on interpretation of and adherence to the requirements of the TM and specific SBs.

At the first stage, when preparing a project profile, project proponents must ensure that the project profile accurately reflects the parameters of the target project. Then, once the SB has been issued, project proponents should carefully review the requirements of the TM and SB when preparing their EIA Reports to ensure that they are fully compliant or risk rejection or a challenge to the granting of a permit.

Wikileaks Cable Shows Grim Truth of Air Pollution in China’s South

Aug 26th, 2011
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http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/index2.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=60838&pop=1&page=0&Itemid=1

26 August 2011

Rubbish floating on the Pearl River is seen in the mangrove woods at the Lianhuashan Mountain in Guangzhou of Guangdong Province, China. The Pearl River Delta is one of the most developed regions in China, which also led to heavy pollution of the environm

Rubbish floating on the Pearl River is seen in the mangrove woods at the Lianhuashan Mountain in Guangzhou of Guangdong Province, China. The Pearl River Delta is one of the most developed regions in China, which also led to heavy pollution of the environment (China Photos/Getty Images)

Southern Chinese know the health hazards of their environment—they just have to look up and see the brown haze obscuring the Pearl River Delta, an urban hub of cities in Guangdong, China.

But nothing makes Chinese air pollution more evident to the outside world than a Wikileaks cable, prepared by diplomats in the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou in 2006 and released Aug. 26, providing candid statements from Chinese communist officials and foreign officials that prove the point.

One-third of China’s urban inhabitants live in cities with harmful air pollution or even very dangerous pollution, says Wang Jinnan, the chief engineer at the Chinese Academy on Environmental Planning, part of the State Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA), according to the Wikileaks cable.

Air quality is getting worse, especially in major cities, leading to more and more serious health problems, said the vice minister of SEPA, Zhang Lijun, according to the cable.

Officials have also said that air pollution’s financial cost is large and growing.

Zhu Guangyao, deputy chief of the SEPA said that the damage to China’s environment costs about ten percent of China’s yearly GDP. Ten percent was about $200 billion in 2006, at the time Zhu made the statement, but would be $500 billion in 2011.

By 2030, 15 percent of China’s GDP will be lost due to health costs and causalities from air pollution, says a Harvard scholar, according to the cable.

In the report, a Yale scholar estimated more than half of China’s yearly GDP growth would be wiped out due to air pollution.

The cable elaborated other facts that brought to light the pervasiveness of pollution in the south.

For example, when scientists finally started measuring the pollutants in south China, their findings alarmed the world–but the pollutant with the most impact on public health was not even measured. The levels of fine particulate (PM2.5) pollution are suspected to be so high that they would create political difficulties if revealed.

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Heavy industry and residential coal burning fuels 70 percent of China’s energy. Air pollution is also caused by inadequate pollution controls, deforestation, and a sharp increase in the number of motor vehicles.

According to the report, in the next 15 years, Chinese pollution discharges may increase four or five times if reforms aren’t made.

“Air pollution in south China is bad and getting worse, mirroring conditions in many other regions in China,” the cable said.

“It is a sad irony that this region of China—seen as a beacon for poor migrants who want to find fame and fortune—has actually become harmful to those migrants’ and others’ health.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/aug/26/wikileaks-china-dangerous-pollution

WikiLeaks reveals China’s failure to measure dangerous pollution

Pollutant levels were not measured and made public because findings would have been ‘too sensitive’ for the authorities

Wikileaks cable on China :Smog in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, due to air pollution, PM 2.5

Overview on a smog ridden day of the city of Guangzhou. Photograph: Mike Clarke/AFP/Getty Images

China has not measured data on the most dangerous types of air pollution because it is afraid of the political consequences, according to US diplomatic cables.

This assessment, which comes to light as the government prepares to upgrade its air quality monitoring system, was among the central findings of cables from the US consulate in Guangzhou that were released on Wednesday by WikiLeaks.

Diplomats based in the industrial heartland of Guangdong – known as the workshop of the world and also one of the worst areas for acid rain and other pollution – looked in detail at monitoring systems and health impacts in 2006.

Based on research by local scientists, the consulate noted in a cable dated 16 August that small-particulate matter known as PM2.5, was five to 10 times higher than suggested by World Health Organisation guidelines.

It said the findings were “alarming”, because PM2.5 is not on the government index of air pollutants yet it is deemed to be of highest concern for public health because the particles are so fine they can enter into the lungs, contribute to acute respiratory symptoms, heart disease, childhood illnesses and premature deaths.

The diplomats observed, however, that this form of pollution was not being systematically measured and made public because the findings were likely to be too sensitive for the authorities.

“Those lobbying for its inclusion in an index of pollutants conceded that including a pollutant whose current levels would measure so far above acceptable standards would be politically difficult,” the cable said.

Problems about transparency extended to academia, according to another cable dated 19 September 2006, which describes: “Academics and research scientists in Guangdong, who are increasingly concerned about the region’s serious air pollution, but feel pressured to tone down their comments lest they face cuts in research funding … Scientists acknowledge that lack of transparency for existing air pollution data is a major problem both for research and policy making.”

Diplomats who attempted to research the possible links between pollution and birth defects were denied meeting requests on the grounds that the subject was “too sensitive”.

PM2.5 was not the only problem. Until now, Ozone – another dangerous pollutant – has also been omitted from the index, When the US Environmental Protection Agency Assistant Administrator for Air and Radiation William Wehrum visited the Guangdong Environmental Information Center in 2006, a member of his delegation noted:“The raw data on the LCD screen showed extremely high levels of O3 (Ozone)”.

Since the cable was written in November 2006, however, environmentalists have commended the progress that China has made in measuring, disclosing and reducing air pollution, but many of these concern remain today.

The state media reported on Thursday that a new index would soon be introduced. Expectations are high that it will include ozone for the first time. Less certain is whether PM2.5 will finally be added.

Firms will veto curbs on pollution

Jun 19th, 2011
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South China Morning Post – 19 June 2011

On the matter of “filthy funnels” (“Laws needed on ship pollution”, June 19), I absolutely agree that Hong Kong and the Pearl River Delta should enforce a no-emissions area and switch to low-sulphur fuels.

I assume you also mean to include factories in the delta region that also spew out vile stuff.

This is not going to happen soon, as too many parties are affected. Low-sulphur diesel oil is about 60 per cent more expensive than the heavy fuel oil now used, and a switch would dent shipping companies’ profits.

I seem to recall that we previously selected a shipping tycoon to run this place. We could also select a tycoon with factories spewing out viler stuff across the border.

In all places where such emission controls are in place, there is a mature democratic political system with enlightened voters who can join hands to get this measure through.

Declaring an emission-control area will open up a Pandora’s box. But emission controls could prompt a similar requirement at Shanghai and Tianjin , where the situation is similar.

Sanjay Relan, fleet manager,  Pacific Basin Shipping (SEHK: 2343,announcements, news) (HK)

Delta air cleaner, roadside air worse: Region breathes easier, but not Causeway Bay

Apr 30th, 2010
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air-pollution-causeway-bayLast updated: April 30, 2010

Source: South China Morning Post

Environment officials have been told not to rejoice over remarkable improvements in regional air quality last year, since roadside air pollution continues to worsen and remains at health-threatening levels.

Hong Kong and Guangdong yesterday jointly released monitoring results that showed sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide levels fell 26 and 7 per cent respectively last year, some of the biggest reductions recorded in four years.

But roadside figures quietly published on the government website two days ago showed annual average concentrations of nitrogen dioxide at the roadside in Causeway Bay, Central and Mong Kok all rose by up to 13 per cent.

The figures, the worst in at least five years, show concentrations of the key pollutant exceeded 100 micrograms per cubic metre of air – more than double the World Health Organisation guideline of 40.

The Clean Air Network, an independent group that encourages public comment about air pollution, said officials would be “grossly disingenuous and misleading” if they were to call the regional improvement a victory, as many people were still being exposed to excessive local pollution.

“Roadside pollutant concentrations are critical when assessing harm to human health,” network chief executive Joanne Ooi said. “What matters is the level of pollution to which people are actually exposed to at street level.” She noted that all the regional monitoring stations were well above that level.

Environment officials pledged to continue tackling roadside air pollution from vehicles.

The encouraging regional readings come from a network of 16 air quality monitoring stations in various cities in the Pearl River Delta including Hong Kong. They measure four key air pollutants. The results have been published since late 2005.

The report says the number of days with better air quality rose to 75 per cent last year, compared to 68 per cent in 2006 – in line with local improvement in ambient air quality last year.

Environment officials dismissed suggestions that the good result was attributatble to a drop in industrial production caused by the 2008 credit crunch. They said power consumption in Guangdong rose only modestly last year despite strong economic growth in the province.

They put the improvements down to emission control programmes in Guangdong, such as power plant desulphurisation, and to the use of cleaner vehicle fuel. These, they said, had led to cumulative reductions in the sulphur dioxide level of 38 per cent and of 9 per cent in nitrogen dioxide.

Both pollutants mainly come from combustion in power generation, industrial boilers and the millions of vehicles in the region.

There was similar progress on respirable suspended particles, with the concentration falling 7 per cent since 2006 and remaining roughly the same last year as in 2008. The officials admit, however, that regional ozone pollution has shot up, rising 10 per cent over 2008 and 17 per cent over 2006 – reflecting a similar deterioration in Hong Kong.

Ozone is a secondary pollutant formed through chemical reaction mainly between two pollutants – nitrogen dioxide and volatile organic compounds, such as solvents used in industrial production – under strong sunlight.

The officials blamed stronger solar radiation last year. “There has been fluctuation of the radiation level over the years, and we need more time to observe that,” one said. The official said increased cloud cover earlier this year had led to a decrease of 20 per cent in solar radiation, and the ozone concentration had fallen by roughly the same extent.

Officials also warned that there were signs that ambient ozone pollution had influenced the formation of nitrogen dioxide at the roadside.

They said ozone could react with nitrogen oxides emitted from vehicles and turn the latter into nitrogen dioxide – which has been found to have increased by up to 16 per cent between 2005 and 2009 at the three roadside monitoring stations.

Professor Alexis Lau Kai-hon, an atmospheric scientist from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, said while officials’ theory on ozone and nitrogen dioxide was correct, it did not suggest vehicle emissions should not be blamed.

He said it would take a long time to address the complicated ozone pollution and no matter how much the ozone could be suppressed, the presence of nitrogen oxide emissions from vehicles would still contribute to more roadside pollution.

“After all, vehicle emissions remain excessive and dirty enough to threaten our health. There is no excuse not to clean them up,” Lau said.

Lau said the government should take roadside air pollution seriously and implement more transport management measures on top of controlling exhaust emissions.

Professor Wang Tao, a scientist specialising in air pollution research at the Polytechnic University, said ozone pollution was a worldwide issue and the most difficult to deal with. He said his research suggested that volatile organic compounds, such as solvents found in paints and protective coatings, were the main driver of ozone pollution.

“Unlike controlling sulphur dioxide and particulate matter, for which one can target a relatively smaller number of power plants, the volatile organic compounds are being emitted from thousands of factories in the region, many of which are small and medium-sized,” he said.

Wang said improvement in regional air quality did not guarantee better roadside air, and it was advisable for the government to tackle vehicle pollution at the same time.

Ooi of the Clean Air Network said roadside pollution had a greater direct health impact than regional pollution. “The lowest pollution monitor included in the sampling network was five metres above the ground, far above pedestrian height, with all other monitoring stations at nine metres or higher,” she said.

She also noted that while levels of roadside respirable suspended particles fell last year, concentrations were still several times higher than WHO guidelines.

Read the full reports on Hong Kong and Pearl River Delta air pollution.

http://www.epd-asg.gov.hk/english/report/files/AAQS09e.pdf

http://www.gdepb.gov.cn/gsgg/200710/P020100429536280667936.pdf

Written by Cheung Chi-fai

Deadly air pollution on the increase in Hong Kong

Jan 13th, 2010
by AdminCTA.
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Want to do sports in HK? There are only 30 days in HK which the air is safe to do sports outside according to the WHO guidelines.

Want to do sports in HK? There are only 30 days in HK which the air is safe to do sports outside according to the WHO guidelines.

A report in Hong Kong media last week says the city and its surrounding areas experienced life-threatening levels of air pollution one in every eight days last year.
The South China Morning Post reports figures from the Environment Protection Department showing there were 44 days of ‘very high pollution’ reported in Central, on Hong Kong island. In some areas air quality has deteriorated five-fold in just five years, and there are criticisms that official records do not show the whole picture.

Click here to read the report from New York Times.

Presenter: Bo Hill
Speaker: Gerald Winnington-Ingram, Clear the Air Hong Kong

WINNINGTON-INGRAM: We have now in Hong Kong a situation where we only have 41 days of healthy breathable air according to the WHO guidelines per year. Irrespective of the fact that you cannot see anything which is a shame, because it really is a beautiful city and a beautiful place to be living, the health implications are very, very serious and you certainly would not want to be doing any physical exercise on one of those days. We have only some 30 days in which it is safe to do sports outside and then according to the WHO guidelines.

HILL: Are there particular areas of Hong Kong, say Central or the New Territories, that suffer worse than elsewhere?

WINNINGTON-INGRAM: There are. For example, Nathan Road, which is an extremely popular tourist destination – well there we have nitrogen dioxide levels at some 380 milligrams per cubic metre and that’s well in excess of WHO guideline which is for 200 milligrams per cubic metre and in fact even Hong Kong’s own air quality objective is for 300, so it’s well in excess of that. So that’s Nathan Road. Plus also parts of the Central District – Des Voeux Road, which is a major thoroughfare running through the central business area, that has a reading of around 390 milligrams per cubic metre of nitrogen dioxide. Hennessy Road is another one which is in Wan Chai, again a very popular local area – 480. So these are areas you certainly don’t want to be going in at all on a bad day. But if you’re suffering from any form of respiratory disease or heart complaint, it is actually very dangerous. We had in 2008, over 1,000 avoidable deaths, some 81,000 avoidable hospital days as a consequence, something in the order of seven and a quarter million avoidable doctors visits and all of that amounts to the cost in the order of about 230 million Hong Kong dollars, which could have been avoided. Now that doesn’t even take into account all the other ailments such as coughs, sore throats and itchy eyes, that were not even reported.

HILL: So huge costs, not only monetary but also physically. What’s been done about it and can Hong Kong authorities be doing more?

WINNINGTON-INGRAM: Well, I think they could be doing a lot more and we certainly and other green groups are campaigning extremely hard. Fifty three per cent of air pollution is local and it’s actually Hong Kong is the dominant source. Yes, we do get air pollution coming from the Pearl River Delta of course, but roadside pollution which is a major problem in Hong Kong is caused by local conditions. Some 50 per cent of Hong Kong’s total emissions is also being caused by power plants. Forty per cent of roadside emissions have been caused by buses. The government’s figures go nowhere close to showing the real picture and the real affect of air pollution in Hong Kong.

source: Radio Australia‏
http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/connectasia/stories/201001/s2791277.htm

Delta Air Quality ‘Making Huge Gains’ – Officials Claim Success In Anti-pollution Drive

Apr 23rd, 2009
by AdminCTA.
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Cheung Chi-fai, SCMP – Apr 23, 2009

Environmental officials have claimed “huge” success in efforts to improve air quality in the Pearl River Delta, although they admit plummeting industrial production could have had something to do with it.

They say that after completion of major sulfur-reduction projects in Guangdong and a switch to cleaner industrial and vehicle fuel, concentrations of sulfur dioxide in the air fell by a third in the six months to March compared with a year earlier.

The drop was in line with a general improvement in air quality in the region as reported in the latest regional air quality monitoring results for last year, released yesterday.

A Hong Kong environmental official said factory closures could have been a factor and monitoring over a longer period was needed to be sure. “But so far we do not believe the financial tsunami alone could have brought such huge progress.”

The results showed that the annual average concentration for sulfur dioxide, a major pollutant from fuel combustion, dropped by 19 per cent compared with 2007, while the particulate matter level fell 11 per cent.

The levels of two other pollutants, nitrogen dioxide and ozone, however, remained largely the same as in the previous year.

scm_news_air_pollution23
It was the third report on the region’s air quality since a cross-border monitoring network, with 16 stations in Guangdong and Hong Kong, came into operation in late 2005. The network provides the regional air quality monitoring index daily on the websites of the Environmental Protection Department and Guangdong Environmental Protection Bureau.

The report showed that the proportion of days with the worst air quality dropped from 10.5 per cent in 2007 to 7.5 per cent last year, while good air quality days increased to 71 per cent, from 66 per cent in 2007.

Pollution also reduced significantly in individual areas, particularly in the black-spot cities of Foshan and Zhaoqing .

Despite the improvement, a Hong Kong environmental official was cautious about saying last year represented a watershed in the battle to reverse the trend of worsening air quality in the delta. “We need more monitoring data, say, for five years, to ascertain that,” he said.

The official attributed the change to the completion of desulfurisation projects at major power plants in Guangdong. Coal-fired plants with a total capacity of 26,000MW were fitted with sulfur scrubbers last year, more than double the capacity in late 2007. Smaller polluting generation units with a total capacity of 3,600MW have been closed down.

The official said upgrading vehicle fuel with less sulfur in Guangdong and using ultra-low-sulfur fuel for industries in Hong Kong also added to the progress. Sulfur dioxide and particulate levels in Hong Kong fell by 7 and 5 per cent last year, though the ozone level rose by 5 per cent, he said.

The sky has also cleared somewhat, with the number of hours with poor visibility falling to 1,100 last year, from nearly 1,300 hours in 2007, the Observatory has reported.

Delta Plan ‘To Exclude Cut In CO2 Emissions’ Main Greenhouse Gas Left Out For A Decade

Mar 30th, 2009
by AdminCTA.
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Chloe Lai in Guangzhou, SCMP – Mar 30, 2009

Carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, is likely to be excluded from the Pearl River Delta air quality management plan for a further decade.

The plan is due for renewal by the Guangdong and Hong Kong governments next year and the Environmental Protection Department is tight-lipped on whether CO2 will be included. But a source close to the Guangdong government said CO2 was likely to be excluded from the plan.

“The only possible way to have the greenhouse gas included in the monitoring is Hong Kong doing it internally, setting a model for Guangdong,” the source said.

Both sides are now discussing the next targets for 2020 and which emissions should be included.

Hong Kong and Guangdong agreed in 2002 to reduce emission of sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, respirable suspended particulates and volatile organic compounds by 40 per cent, 20 per cent, 55 per cent and 55 per cent, respectively, by 2010.

The city is confident it will meet those targets, according to a mid-term review the Environmental Protection Department released early last year. But the department says Guangdong would have to implement additional control measures to meet them.

Hong Kong released 45 million tonnes of CO2 in 2006, according to government figures. This equals 6 tonnes per person, or 0.1 per cent of the world’s total emission.

Hong Kong’s principal source of CO2 emissions is power generation, which accounts for more than 60 per cent of the total. Green groups in Hong Kong have for years been urging the government to set an emission target on CO2.

The Environmental Protection Department has commissioned a consultancy study on climate change in Hong Kong which is due to be completed by the end of the year.

It will review and update the inventories of greenhouse gases in Hong Kong, characterise the impact of climate change on the city, and recommend additional policies and measures to reduce such emissions.

While the city is not obliged under the Kyoto Protocol to set any reduction targets for emissions, the government pledged along with other Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation economies in 2007 to reduce Hong Kong’s energy intensity by a quarter by 2030, with 2005 as the base year.

The UN is hosting a two-week meeting with 175 countries participating, including China, to craft a new agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

At a meeting between the Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen and Guangdong party chief Wang Yang early this month, both sides agreed to jointly map out further arrangements on how to improve regional air quality.

It is understood authorities in Guangdong have started to decide on the province’s emission targets for the 12th five-year plan.

Chen Guangrong, deputy head of the Guangdong Environmental Protection Bureau, also hinted that the province would continue to exclude CO2 from its reduction targets.

“China is a developing country; there is no compulsory obligation for us to cut CO2 emissions under the Kyoto Protocol. But we are doing it voluntarily,” Mr Chen said.

Environmentalists hope the two governments will change their minds.

“There are many of things both sides need to do to improve regional air quality,” Conservancy Association spokesman Hung Wing-tat said. “They should build more monitoring stations, and including CO2 in the monitoring will give us a better picture of greenhouse gas emission in the area.”

Wang Canfa, an environmental expert at the China University of Political Science and Law in Beijing, said it was important for both governments to commit to cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

But it would be more appropriate to do so on a voluntary basis. “There is no law in China on cutting CO2, so it will be difficult for them to set a target and make it compulsory.”

Outdated Smog Index To Be Overhauled

Mar 12th, 2009
by AdminCTA.
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Shi Jiangtao in Beijing – SCMP – Updated on Mar 12, 2009

Mainland air-pollution standards are flawed, and major changes will be made to cover more pollutants and better monitor smog, a senior environment official has said.

Zhang Lijun, vice-minister of environmental protection, said a new air-pollution index would include fine particles and ground-level ozone, a gas produced in sunlight by mixed emissions from industry, vehicle exhaust and fuel vapours.

His announcement, at a briefing yesterday on the sidelines of the annual meeting of the National People’s Congress, came just months after the Beijing Olympics, during which China’s air-pollution measurement system was widely questioned.

The mainland’s air-pollution standards measure only three main air pollutants: sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and PM 10 – particulate matter with a median diameter of less than 10 microns.

“The current standards were adopted 10 years ago,” Mr Zhang said. “The absence of smog-related pollutants of fine particles and [ground-level] ozone has resulted in discrepancies between government statistics and public feelings.

“We often receive phone calls from the public, questioning our air-pollution index and wondering why we publish good air-quality figures even on smoggy days.”

Experts have long argued that the outdated standards, which have failed to reflect the stark reality of persistent smog affecting most cities in the country, should be partly blamed for the failure to tackle pollution and cut public health risks.

They linked soaring mortality rates due to widespread air pollution in the nation’s cities to the government’s ignorance of fine particulate matter and ground-level ozone, both believed to be linked to cancer, respiratory disease and other fatal illnesses.

Mr Zhang said air pollution was “very severe” across the country, with the number of smoggy days in the Pearl River Delta, the Yangtze River Delta, Beijing and Tianjin increasing rapidly.

“Some cities in the Pearl River Delta have recorded more than half a year’s worth of smoggy days.”

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