Idling while air pollution goes through the roof
SCMP
Joanne Ooi
The timing of the bill to ban idling engines could not be worse. In July last year, the Hong Kong government announced its intention to overhaul the city’s air quality objectives – non-binding caps on the levels of seven air pollutants. To meet the new targets, the government commissioned the engineering firm Arup to come up with a package of abatement measures. These 19 measures do not include the anti-idling ban. What they do include are suggestions to use more natural gas and less coal to generate our electricity, hasten the replacement of the city’s oldest commercial diesel vehicles and create low-emission zones.
Unlike these 19 measures, the anti-idling bill will not appreciably reduce roadside pollution, while it asks for major sacrifices from the public. Despite its laudable goal of seeking to reform attitudes towards the environment, the anti-idling bill is quite possibly the weakest and most contentious piece of environmental legislation ever put forward by the government. Besides the humanitarian concerns of heat and extreme weather, underscored by the death of an 81-year-old minibus driver early this month, the bill fails to spell out its targets for major, quantifiable emissions reduction.
It is hardly surprising, then, that legislators are fighting the bill. In May, the Legislative Council unanimously passed a non-binding motion to improve air quality. The motion was notable for not including support for a ban on idling engines, bus route rationalisation or higher licence fees. Instead, the motion called for funding support to bus companies to replace or scrap those buses whose emissions were far in excess of European emission standards. Legislators also proposed using incentives – such as a subsidy – to get owners to scrap their pre-Euro, Euro I and Euro II vehicles rather than replace them with new ones.
In light of the motion and Legco’s history of approving subsidies, it’s reasonable to assume that transport subsidies to clean up the air would meet with the overwhelming approval of all political parties, including populist ones. If one thing is certain, it is that all parties seek to defray the cost of improved air through subsidies rather than increased fares for passengers and consumers. With Hong Kong’s fiscal reserves of half a trillion dollars, could a better use of money be imagined – especially since the worst victims of air pollution are the working poor?
But instead of introducing the measures most urgently needed, the Environmental Protection Department (EPD) and non-governmental organisations such as ours are dealing with the public relations catastrophe triggered by the anti-idling proposal. All the more is the pity since, in the wake of the dust storm in March, the public has been clamouring loudly for more decisive government action. A Gallup poll on air pollution that month found that, of residents surveyed in 153 cities around the globe, Hong Kong’s residents were the most dissatisfied with their air – 70 per cent of respondents. Given this unprecedented public support for clean air, it is almost painful to watch the EPD and Edward Yau Tang-wah, the environment secretary, deplete valuable political capital to win a pyrrhic victory for a bill with negligible public health benefits.
Roadside concentrations of nitrogen dioxide have steadily increased during the past three years. Each day of inaction costs us three more lives, according to the Hedley Environmental Index. We cannot allow the anti-idling bill to become a huge detour, when the path towards cleaner air is so well marked. The government needs to refocus its efforts, attention and energy on the main task at hand: cleaning up our commercial diesel fleet – urgently.
Joanne Ooi is chief executive officer of the Clean Air Network.
Dirty-diesel ban or bust. Frankly, I’d rather see a no-honking law than a no-idling law.
I fully agree with the contents of this article. I have somehow become greatly frustrated with the attitude of this government who is sacrificing the health of Hongkongers for the benefit of the rich and powerful. I cannot see any genuine improvements in our environment as long as our Chief Executive and the Legco are not elected by universal suffrage.