The Environmental Protection Department has reiterated that improving air quality tops the Government's green agenda.

To improve air quality, the Hong Kong and Guangdong governments have agreed, by the year 2010, to reduce emissions of sulphur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx), respirable suspended particulates (RSP) and volatile organic compounds (VOC) by 40%, 20%, 55% and 55% from 1997 levels.

Compared with that year, Hong Kong has made good progress in cutting emissions of NOx (down 16%), RSP (down 28%) and VOC (down 23%). For SO2, however, much of the effort has been offset by the increase in emissions by power plants, with levels up 47%. Power companies are the biggest source of air pollution in Hong Kong, accounting for 92% of the SO2 and half of the NOx and RSP emissions.

For the new Scheme of Control, the Government has proposed to link the permitted rate of return on all fixed assets of the power companies to their achievement of the emission caps. This will provide the necessary economic incentive for them to reduce emissions.

Further effort

This year, the department will introduce further measures to improve air quality. It is introducing Euro IV emission standards to newly-registered vehicles, and a scheme to control volatile organic compound emissions from various products.

To reduce vehicle emissions, the Government and franchised bus companies have been taking various initiatives including rationalisation of routes and stops, introduction of bus-bus interchange schemes to reduce trips, deployment of environmentally-friendly buses on busy corridors, installation of emission reduction devices and inclusion of new clauses in franchises on the use of environmentally-friendly buses.

On conservation, it said in the past three years 7.3 million trees were planted in urban areas and country parks. To-date about 48,200 hectares, or 43% of Hong Kong's total land area, is protected through various conservation designations such as country parks, special areas and conservation zonings. This compares favourably with other cities at a similar stage of economic development.