Let There Be Light
	While Seoul cleans up, air pollution in Hong Kong only worsens. Will the government act?
	By Bryan Walsh | Hong Kong

	LAURENT FIEVET—AFP / GETTY IMAGES VANISHING: Hong Kong is often shrouded in heavy smog

Posted Monday, May 8, 2006; 20:00 HKT
A dedicated long-distance runner well before she moved to Hong Kong in 1998, Rachel Sproston had grown used to jogging through the city's thickening smog. But as she took the starting line on Feb. 12 for the Standard Chartered Hong Kong Marathon, she knew the air was even filthier than usual. "It felt very clogged," says Sproston, who ran the half-marathon. "The wind was blowing hard, which should have been blowing the pollution away. But it was so bad, it didn't clear." Instead it worsened, and the city's Air Pollution Index hit a high of 149 in the area near the finish line—a level at which those with cardiac or respiratory problems are advised to reduce physical exertion. A record 4,800 runners needed medical treatment, and 22 were sent to hospital. Sproston finished fourth, but she's not sure how much longer she'll run in Hong Kong. "I want to continue doing things outdoors, and I can't see doing it here," she says. "The deterioration has been shocking."

Hong Kong has lost its sky. The city is frequently cloaked in a noxious smog, and many days the only place you can see a clear shot of the famously picturesque skyline is in ads for luxury apartments. Urban esthetics aside, the damage to Hong Kong residents' lungs may be worse. "The only safe conclusion is that [air pollution] is having a very serious adverse effect on the health of people of all ages," says Dr. Anthony Hedley, chairman of the Department of Community Medicine at the University of Hong Kong. Here's the only good news: air pollution has become so severe and so unremitting that Hong Kongers are fed up—and may finally be ready to force their leaders to act. The city's business community, which loses more than $90 million a year in medical costs and lost productivity due to pollution, according to brokerage firm CLSA, is pushing for solutions. The answers are out there: the government's Council for Sustainable Development last week released a number of smart anti-pollution proposals, such as restricting vehicle use on high-pollution days, imposing an energy tax during periods of peak power use, and asking electricity producers to use only clean coal or low-polluting natural gas by 2010. While those ideas could have a major impact, many experts doubt whether Hong Kong's entrenched bureaucracy has the imagination or the will to implement them—and to confront a challenge that crosses borders and barriers. "They need to come out and say, 'We have a serious problem, and this is what we'll do,'" says Christine Loh, ceo of the local think tank Civic Exchange. "But that's the kind of political leadership we don't have now."

In defense of Hong Kong's government, few places have a more complicated air-pollution problem than this city of 6.9 million. The narrow streets, ringed by tall buildings, create a "canyon effect" that traps pollutants along roads, creating a serious health risk, especially for the 46% of Hong Kong citizens who live within five minutes of a busy street. Add in the fact that Hong Kong's traffic density is among the world's highest, and it's easy to see why roadside pollution has remained so severe, despite government initiatives over the past few years like cracking down on smoky vehicles and switching taxis to lower-emitting liquid petroleum gas. "We've done the easy things, like getting diesel vehicles on low-sulfur fuels," says Bill Barron, a visiting professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. "But the more fundamental changes still need to be made"—such as extending the city's underdeveloped rail network.

At least the Hong Kong government has the authority to make those changes, if it chooses. There's far less it can do about the estimated 80% of its air pollution that floats across the border from the mainland factories, power plants and highways of Guangdong province, where environmental regulations and enforcement are more lax. Just 12% of the coal plants in Guangdong have emissions-control technologies such as flue-gas desulfurization, says Albert Lai of the Hong Kong People's Council on Sustainable Development, and even those plants sometimes keep the equipment offline to cut costs. Chronic power shortages mean up to 90% of manufacturing plants in the region use backup-electricity generators, which are usually more polluting than grid power. The entire world has benefited from cheap goods produced in the Pearl River Delta region, but it's Guangdong and Hong Kong that are stuck with the environmental cost. "We've stretched things to the limit," says Loh. "And now we're paying the price."

Continued...

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