The recent Rio+20 conference on sustainable development revealed how difficult it is to persuade politicians to take environmental protection seriously. The declaration, 'The Future We Want', addresses important topics, such as plans to establish sustainable development goals and new measures of gross domestic product that account for environmental services. But, overall, the conference was a flop.
Here in Hong Kong, sustainability has been a declared objective of government for almost two decades, but far too little has been done to implement it. We have terrible roadside pollution, sewage flowing into the sea, infuriating noise pollution, enormous material consumption, one of the highest levels of rubbish per person, thousands of uninsulated, energy-hogging skyscrapers, and huge per capita carbon footprints.
With the inauguration of a new chief executive, Leung Chun-ying, so soon after the Rio conference, a question worth asking is whether his government will make environmental protection a bigger priority than did his predecessor. Will he and his new ministers adopt their forerunners' tendencies to disappoint with incredibly weak policies that do little to address Hong Kong's air, water, waste and energy problems?
There are reasons to worry that we might get more of the same. The majority of new ministers have extensive experience in government, which is probably the last thing we need. Incredibly, former environment secretary Edward Yau Tang-wah, who was repeatedly criticised by environmentalists for impotent policies, has been put in charge of the Chief Executive's Office. With Yau as gatekeeper at Government House, one assumes environmental protection won't make it through the door.
The new secretary for housing, planning and lands (under the restructuring plan), Anthony Cheung Bing-leung, is a consummate insider. He has no credentials suggesting he'll make sustainability a priority. He will have to unlearn the government's style of 'consultation', which is to decide policy among insiders behind closed doors, work hard to sell it to the public, and then ram it through even if people won't buy it.
There is some cause for hope in Wong Kam-sing, the new environment secretary, an architect who knows well that Hong Kong cannot tackle its environmental problems without abandoning the government's love affair with developers who lock the city into unsustainable living with their concrete-pouring. But he may find vested interests too much to cope with.