SCMP Laisee 09 Feb 2012
Yau should come clean
Secretary for the Environment Edward Yau was at his slippery best in the Legislative Council yesterday in answering questions on why it was taking so long to introduce new air quality objectives. He once again repeated the erroneous assertion that implementing the new AQOs requires new legislation. This, as we have pointed out before, does not seem to square with the Air Pollution Control Ordinance, which says the AQOs “may be amended from time to time by the secretary, after consultation with the Advisory Council on the Environment”. In other words, they just need to be gazetted. If the government had any interest in cleaning the air, the new objectives could be law within weeks. But the public’s awareness of the problem is growing and Edward Yau’s obfuscations are looking increasingly tatty.