Hong Kong Clean Air Network Introduction

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Research in 2006 shows that Hong Kong’s air is generally fit to breathe on only 41 days of the year.
For the remaining 324 days of the year, breathing Hong Kong’s air has greater health risks.
On 132 of these bad air days, the dominant air pollution comes from regional sources in Southern China.
For the remaining 192 days, the air quality is dominated by pollution from local Hong Kong sources.

Now let’s drill down to each of our three major pollutants – PM, SO2 and NOx.

This is a graph of the average levels of PM, SO2 and NO2 for the last few years – you’ll see one line for urban readings and one for roadside levels.

How can we tell if these levels are safe to breathe?
The standards set by the Government in Hong Kong are called the “Air Quality Objectives “ (or “AQOs”). You can see the current level of urban pollution is under or not far from the AQOs. But not so for roadside levels.

The snag in Hong Kong is the AQOs do not take into account the latest health science. They have not been reviewed since 1987 – a very long time in terms of science.

The latest recommended air quality guidelines are those announced by the World Health Organisation in 2006.
Here’s where the WHO standards fit into our chart. The average figures for SO2 hover around the WHO standard, but the averages for PM and NO2 are way above. Even in the case of SO2, the yearly averages disguise the fact that on individual days, air pollution can rise well above the WHO guidelines.

And here are estimates of the personal and financial heath-related costs of air pollution in a single year – last year, 2008.

Hong Kong needs to do very much better.

I hope these opening facts and figures have been useful and you are now bursting with questions. In a little while, you will have a chance to ask the experts to go deeper into any of these areas. Later today, you will also be involved in discussions on creating solutions for a cleaner future.

But before that, I want to mention where these numbers come from. They were generated by a new online tool called the Hedley Environmental Index. And I’d like to call on three people who are going to help us understand why this tool is important. Could I welcome to the stage:
•Prof. Tony Hedley – Chair Professor of Community Medicine at the University of Hong Kong.
•Dr Quentin Chiotti - Programme Director and Senior Scientist at Pollution Probe, a non-government, research, education, and advocacy organization in Canada.
•Mr Edwin Lau – Director of Friends of the Earth (HK) and has been working on environmental issues in Hong Kong for almost 20 years.

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Hong Kong Clean Air Network Introduction - Presentation Transcript

2006 HKUST
DID YOU KNOW? Healthy days 41 Polluted 324 Hong Kong had just 41 healthy days in 2006 2006 HKUST
2006 HKUST
While HK is affected by air 53 pollution from elsewhere... % of the time the dominant source is HK’s own LOCAL pollution 2006 HKUST
PM10 100 Roadside Annual Mean Concentration (μg/m3) HK now HKAQO 50 Urban WHO 0 1994-2007 SOURCE: HKUST
PM10 100 Hong Kong’s Roadside Air Pollution Annual Mean Concentration (μg/m3) HK now far exceeds HKAQO World Health 50 Urban Organisation’s recommended WHO standards 0 1994-2007 SOURCE: HKUST
OUR AIR IS: worse than worse than worse than New York Singapore Tokyo triin@flickr Storm Crypt@flickr dreamingyakker@flickr
OUR AIR IS: 3× 1.7× 1.3× worse than worse than worse than New York Singapore Tokyo triin@flickr Storm Crypt@flickr dreamingyakker@flickr
You and your family are affected EVERY DAY
but HOW?
IN 2008 HONG KONG PEOPLE SUFFERED: SOURCE:
IN 2008 HONG KONG PEOPLE SUFFERED: 1,155 avoidable deaths 81,023 avoidable hospital bed days 7,250,000 avoidable doctor visits HK$2,317,130,000 avoidable dollar cost Untold coughs, sore throats, itchy eyes . . . SOURCE:
Short-term spikes increase:
Short-term spikes increase: ➡ Elderly deaths & hospitalizations ➡ Asthma attacks ➡ Widespread irritation or discomfort
Long term exposure is worse! Mark McLaughlin@ﬂickr
Long term exposure is worse! All of us face shorter, lower-quality lives especially from heart and lung disease Mark McLaughlin@ﬂickr
CLEAN AIR NETWORK wants the Government to phatfreemiguel@ﬂickr
CLEAN AIR NETWORK wants the Government to Improve Hong Kong’s outdoor air quality to the point where pollution no longer poses a signiﬁcant threat to human health, as it does presently phatfreemiguel@ﬂickr
The Government should: phatfreemiguel@ﬂickr
The Government should: 1. Adopt the WHO Air Quality Guidelines 2. Set an early date to comply 3. Allocate resources to make it happen 4. Report progress every year 5. Research the health effects of air pollution 6. Work with Guangdong to reduce regional pollution phatfreemiguel@ﬂickr
CLEAN AIR NETWORK wants YOU to speak out to urge the Government to make PROTECTING THE PUBLIC HEALTH the top priority Become a Friend of CAN www.hongkongCAN.org
CLEAN AIR NETWORK wants YOU to speak out to urge the Government to make PROTECTING THE PUBLIC HEALTH the top priority Become a Friend of CAN www.hongkongCAN.org
CLEAN AIR NETWORK wants YOU to speak out to urge the Government to make PROTECTING THE PUBLIC HEALTH the top priority Become a Friend of CAN www.hongkongCAN.org