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The Year in Air Pollution

With 2011 only a few hours away, it's a good time to recap last year's achievements and next year's challenges.

In late March, a giant sandstorm from northern China caused levels of particulate matter (PM) to reach record levels in Hong Kong. Hong Kong’s API readings hit 500 and even exceeded the monitoring technology's limitations. The dust cloud caused levels of PM to exceed 700 micrograms per cubic meter. This is over 14 times higher than the annual level of 50 micrograms per cubic meter suggested by the World Health Organization’s Air Quality Guidelines. However, experts remarked that living in a persistently high pollution environment actually poses a greater threat to one’s health.
 

The threat is so serious that in late April one of Hong Kong’s leading authorities on air quality and public health, Professor Anthony Hedley, left Hong Kong in order to avoid its polluted air and recover from severe health and respiratory problems. It is indeed a sad irony that one of the people most committed to alleviating Hong Kong's air pollution problem had to leave the city for such a reason.
 

Soon after, the Environmental Protection Department introduced the Motor Vehicle Idling (Fixed Penalty) Bill to LegCo. The Bill requires drivers to switch off their engines while their vehicles are stationary on roads or in a car park. CAN successfully lobbied doctors and schools to speak up for the Bill from a public health perspective. Unfortunately, after months of deliberation, the bill was emasculated by transport interests in the Legislative Council. CAN and other environmental groups have decided not to deplete valuable political capital on this bill, choosing instead to focus on measures which have a greater chance of significantly benefiting public health, such as the clean-up of commercial diesel vehicles.

During October's policy address, Chief Executive Donald Tsang emphasized roadside pollution in Hong Kong as a serious problem and pledged to alleviate it. Measures he announced include:
• introducing environmental safeguards into franchise bus agreements when they come up for renewal;
• the government purchase of six trial hybrid buses;
• paying for the retrofit of all Euro II and Euro III buses to meet Euro IV emission standards;
• designating low-emission zones in busy districts in Hong Kong by 2015.

However, CAN thinks these actions are “too little too late” and will not tackle a major part of the problem - the approximately 35,000 old, very polluting pre-Euro and Euro I commercial diesel vehicles plying Hong Kong’s streets.
 

Given the inaction of the government, some major players in the private sector stepped into the leadership void. In November, the Hong Kong Liner Shipping Association announced the Fair Winds Charter - a voluntary charter under which international shipping companies will, when berthed in Hong Kong, use low-sulphur diesel fuel. Encouragingly, 17 lines out of the association’s 21 container shipping members agreed to be bound by the charter. The associations that signed the charter represent 80 percent of all international shipping traffic.
 

Towards the end of the year, Civic Exchange released a public opinion survey of 1,000 + residents, entitled “Less Talk, More Action.” The survey shows that one in four people are considering emigration in response to the public health threat posed by Hong Kong’s air pollution. This is up from one in five in December 2008, when a similar survey was conducted. Results also show that the most educated are the most likely to consider leaving.
 

But nothing was worse than Bloomberg's terrifying wrap-up of Hong Kong's air pollution situation published last week: Hong Kong's 2010 roadside pollution levels are the worst on record since 1999. Roadside smog reached “very high” or “severe” levels on the city’s air pollution index at least 12.6 percent of the time this year, excluding December. This is compared with “very high” or “severe” roadside pollution recorded at monitoring stations 10.62 percent of the time during the whole of 2009.
 

The Year Ahead

Considering the monumental task of cleaning up Hong Kong's air, we have a steep uphill climb ahead. But we can point to the following achievements in 2010:
• Substantially increased media coverage of the issue in all media, international and local. Hong Kong is now considered to have a pollution problem on par with that experienced by Mexico City and Los Angeles in previous decades, greatly increasing pressure on the government to deal with the issue;
• Mobilized heretofore reticent groups and organizations, such as students and doctors, to speak out about the need for clean air more vocally;
• Awakened the general public (see the Civic Exchange survey mentioned above) and, in the process, the Hong Kong Government to the very pressing issue of roadside pollution. Even though we consider the battery of franchised bus measures to be more PR than substance, the fact that the government is willing to spend money on pollution abatement retrofits and trial hybrid buses is still a hard-won political victory.

In 2011, we will focus our efforts on the following initiatives:
• Getting the government to announce new Air Quality Objectives, because standards are always the greatest drivers of change, in both business and policy;
• Cleaning up the large number of very old commercial diesel vehicles still on our streets which continue to disproportionately pollute our roadside air.

In order to meet these challenges, we will take a cue from the the international shipping industry and seek to educate and coordinate the environmental initiatives of polluting companies, while continuing our widespread educational campaign, which extends from public housing estates all over Hong Kong to CEOs' offices. Finally, since we are a network, we will continue our efforts to consolidate and unify the messages of NGOs, political parties and other organizations, in order to send the government a coordinated message.

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CAN is the #1 resource for health, news, policy about air pollution with a special focus on Hong Kong policy and events. Plese visit CAN at http://www.hongkongcan.org/eng

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