According to HKU’s Hedley Index, over 10,000 premature deaths were caused by air pollution in Hong Kong in the past 5 years. The Hong Kong Air Quality Objectives (AQO) are far too loose compared to the World Health Organization’s Air Quality Guidelines (WHOAQGs), meaning they are insufficient in safeguarding public health. Still, the government proposes to greatly increase the number of allowable exceedances for air pollutant, PM2.5, from 9 times to 35 times a year.

The reason behind the exceedance proposal is that the government estimated the level of PM2.5 would exceed the proposed AQO for 33 times in 2025. The proposal clearly places technical feasibility first and ignores the importance of public health. As research in 2011 done by the University of Hong Kong has shown that population in Hong Kong would be exposed to an additional 24% health risk every year if the government were allowed to increase the number of exceedances. More importantly, the proposal to increase the number of allowable exceedance for air pollutants does not fulfill Air Pollution Control Ordinance’s major objective, which is to “abate, prohibit and control pollution of the atmosphere”.

Besides, the government shows low willingness to combat air pollution by not proposing to tighten the AQOs for the two pollutants, PM10 and ozone, even though the concentration levels of the two pollutants are expected to increase in the future.

We urge the government to:
1. Withdraw the proposal to increase PM2.5’s number of allowable exceedances to 35 times
2. Tighten the AQOs for PM10 and ozone
3. Tighten the AQOs to WHOAQGs as soon as possible

Albeit with an approximate 30% of reduction of key air pollution over the past few years, Hong Kong’s public health is not sufficiently protected.

Due to high level of roadside air pollution, a large percentage of the population are constantly exposed to substantial health risks, with a direct impact on our health and in some cases our lives, with an economic impact as well.

Over the last 20 years, roadside air pollution has stayed as high as two times the WHO’s standard. Relying on Environment policies alone to reduce emission from vehicle is not enough to bring the roadside air pollution down to safe level, by year 2020. The HKSAR government must implement transport demand management solutions to improve roadside air quality and hence Transport and Housing Bureau should be held accountable.

In order to safeguard public health, CAN urges the Chief Executive to deliver the below in her first Policy Address –

1) establish air pollution reduction target for Transport and Housing Bureau;

2) delegate Food and Health Bureau to lower the health risks of non-communicable diseases posed by air pollution;

3) delegate Environment Bureau to immediately tighten HK’s Air Quality Objectives to WHO AQGs.

Roadside air pollution has remained unsafe over the last 20 years and stayed as high as two times the WHO’s standard.

In the past decades, the number of registered vehicles has increased drastically from 530,000 to 820,000. This seriously worsens traffic congestion thus roadside pollution. Furthermore, the prolonged journey time also increases the commuters’ exposure to roadside air pollution.

We need your immediate support to urge government to implement policies to curb vehicle numbers.

Effectiveness of existing Low Emission Zones (LEZ) is questionable.

The existing LEZ only included a few street blocks in Causeway Bay, Central and Mongkok. We dubbed as “low emission streets”. LEZ solely regulates buses, but franchised buses only account for 40% of total traffic accounts in busy areas, whilst the remaining 60% consists of other vehicles. That means it cannot achieve real emissions reduction.

In order to accommodate the LEZ , government shifts bus routes and uses older bus models in area out of the LEZ. Neglecting equally polluted areas such as Tsim Sha Tsui.

We petition to﹕

• Expand the current geographical scope;
• Prohibit other high emission vehicles from entering low emission zones;
• Enhance the effectiveness of low emission zones by combining pedestrian zones, for example, combining Des Voeux Road Central pedestrian zone with tram zones.

Hong Kong’s current Air Quality Objectives are set far below the World Health Organisation Air Quality Guildelines

Failure to comply to such standard raises citizens’ mortality rate by 2.5-15%. Expensive medical bills and lost of productivity causes Hong Kong $39 billion per year. To protect public health and the environment, we petition to:

we petition to

• Specify “to protect public health as the first priority” as one of the air quality objectives in Section 7A of the Air Pollution Control Ordinance;
• Tighten the AQO to the WHO standard, especially the AQO of sulphur dioxide for 24 hours average, which is currently 5 times higher than the WHO AQGs;
• Set up a regular advisory committee, with participants from civil society, academic and industry fields, to review AQO and its related policy

CAN is very disappointed that the authorities has decided to shelve the installation of onshore power supply for Kai Tak Cruise Terminal. Ocean going ships are Hong Kong’s biggest pollution source. On shore power system avoids the burning of fuels on ships berthing cruises. Its social benefits is estimated to bring 5.23 hundred millions per year and avoid 42 premature deaths.

To protect public health, we urge the government to:

• keep its promise on A Clean Air Plan for Hong Kong and set up on shore power system at Kai Tak Cruise Terminal immediately