BLOG: THOMAS FRIEDMAN, HK'S CARBON FOOTPRINT & BUMPING INTO EDWARD YAU

***CO2 emissions and climate change ARE integrally related to energy use and transport emissions. HOWEVER, they are not inherently harmful to health. thus, as a rule, CO2 emissions are NOT treated as an air pollutant governed by HK's Air Pollution Control Ordinance and neither should they be, since the dominating principle of the APCO should be the protection of public health from the immediate, direct, adverse health impacts of air pollution. HOWEVER, from time to time, I may mention CO2 emissions because it's of interest to CAN's environmentally minded audience.

today, i was lucky enough to be invited to the inauguration of HK University of Science and Technology's NEW Division of Environment. BRAVO! thomas friedman, the brilliant american author and commentator, was invited to give the inaugural speech. edward yau, secretary of the environment, was also there to preside over the inauguration of the school.

the main course was friedman's abbreviated exposition of his seminal book, hot, flat and crowded, which states the case for why a green technology revolution is 1) good business; 2) indispensable to saving human civilization and 3) necessarily predicated on visionary government leadership -- the sort made impossible by a broken, sclerotic, pork-barreling democracy such as the US'. (i am a huge fan and brought my personal copy for his signing. i'm not someone who typically falls into the category of "fan", but i couldn't help myself in this extremely rare case : )) the main point of friedman's book is to point out the severe deficiencies of american political-environmental leadership resulting from its hamstrung political structure (something he terms a "one-party democracy"), while shining light on the path forward (price signals which afford investors in clean technology a stable predictable economic environment within which to recoup their investments over the medium- to long-term, family planning, a mentality of conservation, etc.)

the failure of leadership we see in the HK government, to date, is largely the result of our stillborn hybrid political system which defeats most notions of political accountability. whereas american legislation, such as the recent health bill, is customarily riddled with obvious instances of chit-trading, the end result is the same: policies and laws which are toothless and hardly up to their originally intended purpose. as edward yau aptly pointed out, only "huge public pressure" will bring green changes to our city. it would be, after all, a laughable pipe dream to believe that we could rely on the vision and courage of donald tsang! so my work is cut out for me!

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at the end, there was a rather dry panel discussion. but it was relieved by some interesting factoids adduced by edward yau about hong kong's carbon footprint. in hk, 63% of all carbon emissions come from buildings, whereas 16% (only) come from vehicles. for comparison, those numbers are 40% and 30% respectively in the US. the comparatively low proportion of emissions attributable to vehicles in HK is due to the (literally)unrivaled efficiency of HK's public transport system which is responsible for 90% of all passenger trips. another fact: there are 500,000 "cars" in hk and 40,000 buildings according to yau. while i'm very proud of hk's public transport efficiency, i am appalled by the dirtiness of the comparatively few diesel vehicles hk has: 100,000 are causing the life-threatening levels of roadside pollution we experience almost every day! anyway, for more on that, you can read my blog post entitled "beware of red herrings" from a few days back.

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at the end, i chatted with yau, who told me that the new air quality numbers for hk would be coming out shortly. he was pleased to report that the 2009 numbers showed some improvement over 2008. i'm glad he mentioned it so we can prepare the refutation NOW for what will undoubtedly be a self-congratulating press release about these figures. not to launch into a full court press rebuttal now, but it's crazy to take solace from such numbers when a recent study demonstrated extremely dangerous levels of roadside pollution one out of every 8 days in highly trafficked districts and emissions levels consistently 2-3 times those metered at official govt monitoring stations. i also asked yau about the engine idling ordinance and the timing of its introduction. he told me "i'm still working on some back room stuff" but apparently it should be introduced soon. i asked him to give us a head's up so we can mobilize public opinion to assist the ordinance's passage in legco this year. on that, boy oh boy, do we have some interesting stuff planned! just watch this space!

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