Publicity campaign launched to promote concerted effort on achieving carbon neutrality by 2050

The Environmental Campaign Committee (ECC) officially launched the two-year Carbon Neutrality Publicity Campaign last Friday, with the aim of promoting energy saving, green transport and waste reduction & recycling among the citizens, thereby contributing to Hong Kong’s goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050.

The campaign is sponsored by the Environment and Conservation Fund (ECF), and co-organised by ECC, the Environment and Ecology Bureau, the Environmental Protection Department and the Electrical and Mechanical Services Department.

Officiating at the launch ceremony, Secretary for Environment and Ecology Tse Chin-wan introduced the Hong Kong government’s strategies proposed in Hong Kong’s Climate Action Plan 2050. The government is dedicated to developing zero-carbon energy, trying new energy solutions, and strengthening regional cooperation on “net-zero power generation”. In the transport sector, the government will also keep promoting buses, light buses, taxis, goods vehicles and ferries on switching to new energy.

In terms of waste handling, the government plans to expand the community recycling network to facilitate waste reduction at source and clean recycling, and develop new waste-to-energy facilities to dispense with landfills which produce methane, a greenhouse gas. The government is preparing to charge solid waste in the city starting next year.

Tse said decarbonization is very urgent as it is a matter of human survival, citing the occurrence of extreme weather in different parts of the world, like the more frequent heavy rainfalls in mainland China in recent years.

In addition to government’s strategies, Tse emphasized that it is each citizen’s contribution that can really effectively help tackle climate change, and thus he called on the public to change their daily habits to collectively reduce carbon emissions.

To raise public awareness, the ECC will roll out a series of large-scale publicity activities in the next two years to promote concepts in three aspects, energy saving, green transport and waste reduction at source, said chairman Prof. Wong Kit-long.