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HONG KONG—It is a view to die
for.
But the awe-inspiring vistas from Victoria Peak, overlooking
Hong Kong's Fragrant Harbour, are shrouded in smog most days.
And people are dying as a result.
On a few clear days, the mountains of mainland China still
beckon from across the harbour. But, on a record 65 days last
year, the view was completely blocked by thick air pollution,
yellowish and acrid, wafting across the border into this former
British colony.
Nearly eight years after being handed back to Chinese sovereignty
under the rubric of "One country, two systems,"
Hong Kong is in the smothering embrace of the motherland's
industrial emissions. Now, it's "One country, one environment"
— and not a healthy one.
And it's destined to deteriorate.
"Things are going to get worse before they get better,"
says Sarah Liao, Hong Kong's environment secretary. "If
you want a quick fix, I say, `I'm sorry.'"
Medical researchers announced last week that pollution is
a factor in up to 15,000 premature deaths annually in this
port city of 7 million people. Their conclusions come on top
of growing evidence that Hong Kong is paying a high price
for neglecting the environment.
"I firmly believe it's a major cause of premature deaths
in Hong Kong," said Anthony Hedley, head of community
medicine at Hong Kong University.
"We need radical interventions," says Hedley, who
co-authored a previous study showing that 17,000 people are
hospitalized every year because of air pollution-related ailments.
"I see this as an oil tanker at full steam that will
take a long time to turn around."
It would take Hong Kong another 20 years to achieve Canadian
air quality standards, which are about twice as stringent.
Government statistics show current pollution levels here are
more than double the average for Toronto.
Hong Kong's glittering highrise towers act like concrete
canyons that trap toxins in the air when low winds cannot
disperse them, compounding the perils of imported pollution.
On one such day last September, the air pollution index exceeded
the critical 200 level, double the "very high" benchmark
of 100 that was recorded more than 80 times last year.
The fallout is being felt in some of those same office towers,
where multinational companies are crying foul because of the
difficulty in recruiting expatriate managers and other white-collar
professionals to a pollution-plagued city. A recent survey
by the Hong Kong Chamber of Commerce found that four out of
five members were unhappy with the environment.
"Some people say they don't want to come here because
of their kids — asthma and all that," says Bernard
Pouliot, head of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce here.
A survey by the Canadian Chamber last year found that environmental
concerns had overtaken the economy in Hong Kong. Indeed, Pouliot's
organization has joined forces with other foreign business
groups "to pressure the government into realizing that
this is a problem for business."
Heeding the business lobby, Hong Kong's local government
belatedly took steps such as converting taxi fleets from diesel
to cleaner-burning liquefied petroleum gas. But there's a
limit to what it can do.
More than 80 per cent of the pollution — sulphur dioxide,
nitrogen oxide and harmful ozone — emanates from mainland
sources beyond its control.
`I firmly believe it's a major cause of premature
deaths in Hong Kong. We need radical interventions.'
Anthony Hedley, head of community medicine at Hong
Kong University
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"I think they're extremely concerned about it, but
they feel impotent about it," Pouliot says. "We
need giant fans to blow the air back to China."
In fact, the pollution problem is China's version of blowback:
Hong Kong relocated many of its high-polluting industries
into low-wage factories across the border over the last two
decades, but the prevailing winds are sending them back across
the Pearl River Delta.
Dubbed the world's factory, southern China's breakneck economic
growth of about 15 per cent a year has put unbearable strains
on the local environment: The region belches 700,000 tonnes
of sulphur dioxide annually.
With more than 2.5 million cars on the roads, vehicle ownership
is growing at an unprecedented pace among newly prosperous
Chinese workers, spewing carbon monoxide into the atmosphere.
Electricity shortages have prompted big utilities to restart
primitive coal-fired power plants once mothballed.
Factories at full tilt are switching on their standby generators
to meet rising electricity needs, relying on low-grade "Bunker
C" fuel oil that spews pollutants into the air. The use
of dirty or "sour" fuels is blamed for much of the
recent surge in pollution.
Now, environmental activists are looking for a shortcut:
if they can somehow persuade the factory owners to clean up
their act at source, they might avoid the delays from government
bureaucracies on both sides.
"The number of visibility days is approaching zero in
winter," warns William Barron, head of urban planning
and environmental management at the University of Hong Kong.
"Talking to the business community, we basically don't
think the Hong Kong government is in a position to do anything."
Barron says more than two-thirds of Guangdong factories are
owned by Hong Kong interests who might be open to persuasion.
"Why don't we appeal directly to these guys?" he
asks. "They live here, too, and so do their families."
Directly across the border, the Special Economic Zone of
Shenzhen has sprung up from out of nowhere over the last 15
years into a teeming city with more than 800,000 vehicles.
It recorded an unprecedented 130 bad-air days last year.
Hong Kong officials have taken a more gradualist approach,
setting up consultative committees with their Chinese counterparts
and calling for more research from new pollution monitoring
stations across the Pearl River Delta. Governments on both
sides of the border have formally committed to cut emissions
in this decade, but only on a "best endeavour" basis
lacking any enforcement mechanisms or penalties.
Environmentalists complain that Hong Kong is reluctant to
put its big brothers across the border on the spot, losing
time for fear that Chinese officials might lose face.
"The Hong Kong government is very good at doing studies,"
complains Edwin Lau, assistant director of the environmental
group Friends of the Earth.
"We're always asking the government to move faster and
act bolder — not wag their finger or slap them down;
we understand that. But they're being too cautious."
For its part, Hong Kong says its hands are tied. Liao, the
cabinet-rank environment secretary, said in an interview that
her government has targeted most local sources of pollution
but cannot order mainland China's economic engine to ease
up.
"What we could do locally we have already done,"
she said.
Keith Kwok, the top official in Liao's department, says:
"It's disappointing, as a Hong Konger living here, to
see air quality visibly deteriorate over the last few years...
You can smell it in the air."
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