Environmental Policy and Sustainable Development in China: Hong Kong in Global Context by Paul G. Harris

Author:Paul G. Harris [Harris, Paul G.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Urban, Social Science, Sociology
ISBN: 9781447305071
Google: 5aQ51lzV3vkC
Goodreads: 14478863
Publisher: Policy Press
Published: 2012-01-15T08:35:40+00:00

Regulation and the monitoring of air pollution

Beginning with its efforts to address air pollution through policies for smoke control in the 1935 Public Health (Sanitation) Ordinance and the 1955 Air Navigation (Abatement of Smoke Nuisances) Ordinance, the Hong Kong government has adopted what has been termed a “nuisance-based approach” to air pollution regulation (Lawson 2008, 4). Instead of dealing with air quality strategically, for example by setting particular public health goals and then trying to achieve them, pollution has been regulated only where it is irritating and provokes complaints. A series of ordinances and amendments, such as the 1960Clean Air Ordinance, the 1983Air Pollution Control Ordinance and amendments to the latter for motor vehicles (1990) and asbestos (1993), have slowly expanded the reach of air pollution law while perpetuating the nuisance-based approach (Lawson 2008, 4). Significantly, this approach to air pollution does not take account of long-term exposure that can harm human health without being irritating enough to provoke complaints (Lawson 2008, 4).

Hong Kong possesses a technically reliable—albeit quite basic—air pollution monitoring capacity. The Environmental Protection Department (EPD) maintains 14 monitoring stations that record both roadside and general air pollution, and which provide continuous public reporting of air quality data. Although critics advocate the deployment of a larger number of monitoring stations and suggest that the location of monitoring stations tends to underplay Hong Kong’s pollution problem (Van Rafelghem and Modini 2007, 5), the EPD’s technical accuracy in measuring the pollutants it does measure in specific locations has not been seriously questioned. However, the laws that the EPD is tasked with enforcing are very weak by international standards. The Air Pollution Control Ordinance establishes a regime for the determination of air quality objectives (AQOs) for seven widespread air pollutants. The ordinance also mandates creation of three additional regimes for air pollution control: a licensing regime for stationary emitters of pollution, a general scheme for issuing air pollution abatement notices and a separate regime for the control of asbestos (Da Roza 2008, 3). The AQOs are the most significant of these four regimes because Hong Kong’s current Air Pollution Index and its air quality warning system are calculated with reference to these objectives.

Hong Kong’s AQOs have been the subject of considerable controversy, not least because it is unclear exactly how they were formulated and because they fail to link air quality objectives to the goal of protecting human health (Trumbull 2007; Da Roza 2008; Friends of the Earth (HK) 2009; Hedley 2009). The Air Pollution Control Ordinance refers to public health in several places. Consequently, in legal terms, protection of health is arguably one of its purposes (Da Roza 2008). However, regulations do not link air quality objectives directly to public health, and the AQOs have not been updated since 1987, despite medical research and changing international standards (see WHO 2006). This means that the AQOs allow levels of pollution that, for different pollutants, are at least several times higher than the WHO’s air quality guidelines (Cheng and Rui 2009, 2).

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