Christine Loh – SCMP Hong Kong will be stuck with a large number of ageing, dirty buses for at least another decade It is good to see that the focus of debate on the government’s proposed air quality objectives and clean-up measures is fixed firmly on reducing roadside pollution. It’s equally pleasing that the 6,000-odd [...]
Posts from ‘August, 2009’
Little headway made in bid to cut bus trips
Cheung Chi-fai and Anita Lam – SCMP Bus trips have been cut by just a fraction on the city’s busiest traffic corridors in the past three years despite the government’s programme to streamline the routes of the three franchised bus companies. Last year, just 360 daily trips were cut from the target routes of Nathan [...]
Rethinking the way we think
Susie Gyopos, SCMP Find out how changing our mental software can lead to creative solutions for the world’s problems, writes Susie Gyopos Climate change, a sinking economy and the threat of epidemics hang glumly over everyone’s heads and we need to be able to think clearly to come up with practical solutions. According to the [...]
Either way we pay
ALBERT CHENG, SCMP Air pollution has been a grim perennial problem in Hong Kong, posing a risk not only to the health of seven million citizens, but the city’s image as an international financial centre. Filthy air is choking our economic development by scaring away foreign investors. Hongkongers have for many years blamed the city’s [...]
Lower emission standards fail to stop most dangerous particles
SCMP The government’s air-quality consultant, Ove Arup, says there are more regional rather than local sources for PM2.5 pollution [superfine particles]. Hong Kong is affected by northerly winds from the Pearl River Delta for only half the year. Indeed power companies in the delta started installing flue gas desulphurisation three years earlier than Hong Kong [...]
Fresh thoughts
SCMP Any cross-border clean-up of air pollution must require co-operation among regional authorities. Opportunities for strong collaboration can be created and sustained, but Hong Kong must make this happen. A good place to start is our own government’s consultation on reviewing local air quality standards. I’m often asked whether people across the border are sufficiently [...]