Oct. 10 AQO Public Consulation

Post-mortem on Saturday’s AQO Public Consultation: Unanimous support from the audience of approximately 150 members of the public for urgent action on air pollution.

Summary of remarks from the public:

• Many speakers stated the importance of tightening the standard for SO2, in order to prevent significant avoidable health impacts;
• CAN circulated a flyer about the dangers of marine pollution — that it was THE biggest contributor to street-level SO2 in HK, resulting in calls, during the session, for more aggressive implementation of marine pollution abatement measures.
• Many speakers lambasted the Government for proposing AQOs which were easy to meet based on existing conditions.
• Similarly, several speakers emphasized that clean air can only be won with decisive political leadership and that, to date, the Government has failed to protect the public’s health.
• A couple of audience members questioned the Government’s stated intention to gather feedback from the public, “If the Government is genuinely interested to compile feedback from the public, why the hold the consultation at inconvenient times and not put the entire process online?”

There were some incisive, one-off comments — as well as some remarkable incidents –

• An audience member told the Government to shut up, because it was talking too much, thereby depriving the public of the opportunity to communicate its views.
• A young woman broke down in tears as she explained how “clean air is not a luxury”;
• A young father made an impassioned plea for the Government to treat “this extraordinary problem” with the seriousness it deserved. To his view “What’s contained in this [AQO] document makes no difference.”
• One man went as far as to say that, “the Government’s failure to protect the public may be judged criminal one day”.
• “Tighter standards lead to innovation — innovation which can be successfully exported to the rest of the world,” a businessman pointed out to the Government.
• Civic Exchange observed, “Government needs to regulate, not fix. By regulating, the Government shifts the responsiblity of  compliance to private sector polluters, who must then devise the solutions best for them.”
• The representative from the South Tokwawan Concern Group emphatically voiced the group’s objection to the presence of various pollution nuisances on the old Kai Tak site, without any proper public vetting process.