Little steps can make big difference in air quality

Summer is here again and with it comes the unbearable heat made worse by humidity that is inescapable whenever we are outdoors. While we can't do much about it when living in a tropical environment, we can certainly influence the air quality to some extent by taking a few small steps toward reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

We like to be comfortable in Hong Kong. We prefer the multitude of plastic bags that separate our food when grocery shopping; we like our town lit up all around the clock; we enjoy keeping the air-conditioning on full blast, particularly when in a car stuck in traffic or crawling along.

While the first two habits mentioned above are both bad for the environment and we should try to ameliorate it before it's too late, the third is a bigger problem as it affects not only the environment, but our health too. We tend to blame the Chinese mainland for our air pollution produced by factories there but our efforts to reduce air pollution in our own neighborhood fail - or we could do a lot more.

Gas emissions from trucks, buses and other heavy duty vehicles are particularly toxic and hazardous for our environment. And the relevant authorities do not seem too concerned about idling vehicles with non-stop discharge of soot and metallic particulate matter. Quite the opposite - taxis, minibuses and buses are allowed to idle while queuing, stuck in traffic or waiting for passengers. Considering the amount of transport all over town and the traffic we often find ourselves stuck in, it is not hard to see that the carbon dioxide produced by idling vehicles is a serious health hazard to us all.

According to the Motor Vehicle Idling Ordinance, all drivers are prohibited from letting their internal combustion engine to idle for more than three minutes, unless an exemption applies. What really seems to be the problem is the wide range of exemptions, and the very light fines (HK$320) drivers face if caught.

Traffic wardens and environmental protection inspectors are empowered to enforce the law but sadly they are never anywhere to be seen. Either there are too few of them to be noticed or they are simply overwhelmed by the scale of the problem as far too many drivers simply ignore the law. Drivers without an exemption are only fined if they don't turn off engines within three minutes of a warning. But who is there to warn them? Not to mention that three minutes is too long to allow a polluting engine to keep running.

The Clean Air Network, an independent Hong Kong NGO, firmly believes that the extremely large number of cars concentrated in such limited space has made the problem particularly intractable, short of introducing draconian measures to reduce their number. Research data on air quality coming from the University of Hong Kong's School of Public Health is alarming; air pollution caused about 2,000 premature deaths in Hong Kong in 2015, with public-health costs amounting to HK$27 billion.

Lawmakers have also pointed out that the Motor Vehicle Idling Ordinance had not stopped idling engines which cause pollution and are a nuisance to pedestrians, particularly on those days when the temperature is at its peak.

Ernest Kao, in his article published in the South China Morning Post in December 2013, underlined Kowloon East lawmaker Paul Tse Wai-chun's point of view and his criticism of the ban for its lack of bite: "The plan sounded grand at the beginning but after 24 months we have not seen any significant improvement in the air quality."The ban clearly failed to achieve its desired effect.

We are now in a state of alert over our air quality and at this point everything we can do matters. A simple turn of the wrist to switch off an idling engine should come as second nature to drivers. More and more people (including myself) are experiencing shortness of breath, headaches and health deterioration. Many expats have decided to leave Hong Kong as young children are particularly susceptible to bad air quality.

It is time to educate our population on the severity of the air pollution and what each of us can do to toward its mitigation. The authorities and media apparently have not done enough to help people understand the enormous benefits that can be derived by improving air quality. If they had, more people would be taking those "little steps" in reducing our carbon emissions. The people must be made to understand that if we all chip in, those "little steps" would make a huge difference to our quality of life. If public education fails to change people's habits, perhaps stiffer fines will.

(HK Edition 06/27/2017 page10)