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The Secretary for the Environment, Mr Edward Yau, continued to attend the C40 Large Cities Climate Summit in Sao Paulo, Brazil on June 2 (Sao Paulo time).
In the morning, Mr Yau attended a plenary session on advocacy. "Cities are home to half of the world's population and account for 70% of the world's greenhouse gas production. Recognising this, cities around the world are acting to reduce emissions and increase local resiliency to climate impacts," Mr Yau said.
As part of the international community, Hong Kong has actively sought solutions and taken action to combat climate change, Mr Yau said, outlining Hong Kong's efforts to meet the challenges of climate change and the city's climate change strategy and action agenda for the coming decade. These include the promotion of energy efficiency and green transportation.
Mr Yau said, "Close to 90% of Hong Kong's electricity consumption is related to buildings, and electricity consumed by buildings contributes to about 60% of Hong Kong's greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) emissions. We thus have a very great potential to improve energy efficiency and reduce our GHG emissions by promoting energy efficiency in buildings.
"Our first principal legislation tailor-made for enhancing buildings' energy efficiency was enacted last year. In order to raise energy efficiency in existing buildings, we launched the $450 million Buildings Energy Efficiency Funding Schemes in April 2009, which provide subsidies on a matching basis to incentivise building owners to conduct energy-cum-carbon audits and energy efficiency projects for their buildings."
On green transport, Mr Yau said the Hong Kong Government was committed to promoting the use of electric vehicles (EV) in Hong Kong and had been exploring with different EV manufacturers the supply of their EVs to Hong Kong.
"To lead by example, the Hong Kong Government will give priority to EVs when replacing government vehicles in this and the next financial years. Meanwhile, a wide range of financial incentives have been introduced to encourage car buyers in Hong Kong to purchase EVs," he noted.
"We have also been in close collaboration with the local power companies as well as the property development, property management and car park operation sectors in setting up an EV charging network."
"We have also planned to build a number of infrastructural projects to help reduce our carbon emissions, including a district cooling system at the Kai Tak Development and some waste treatment facilities, which can turn waste into energy," Mr Yau said.
In the afternoon, Mr Yau attended the C40 General Assembly and Closing Ceremony of the C40 Climate Summit.
On June 3, he will meet with the Chinese Vice Consul-General to Sao Paulo, Mr Bian Chungang, before departing for Hong Kong.
Ends/Friday, June 3, 2011
Issued at HKT 13:09
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