HK strives to attain carbon neutrality: Tse Chin-wan

Environment minister Tse Chin-wan said on Monday that Hong Kong will continue to strive for carbon neutrality by 2050, highlighting the SAR’s multi-pronged plan to achieve this goal.

Speaking at a climate forum organised by the Environment and Ecology Bureau and University of Hong Kong, the minister said the city’s efforts to achieve carbon neutrality have been bearing fruit.

“We stopped the building of coal-fired power plants in 1997 and have been gradually shifting to natural gas and nuclear power. Due to the efforts made, Hong Kong reached the carbon peak in 2014. Comparing to the peak, our carbon emissions have been reduced by about a quarter now,” he said.

“Our per capita carbon emissions in 2023 were about 4.4 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, which is about 30 percent of that of the United States and 60 percent of that of the European Union,” he added.

In 2021, the government announced its Climate Action Plan 2050 which outlined measures for the SAR to combat climate change and achieve carbon neutrality.

It consists of four major decarbonisation strategies, such as net zero electricity generation, green transport and waste reduction.

Tse said a new facility will be built to increase the proportion of zero carbon electricity to around 70 percent by 2035, along with an upgrade for the current cross-border electricity transmission infrastructure.

On transport, he said the government is expanding the city’s electric vehicle charging network, and will stop selling private cars that run on gasoline or diesel by 2035.

He added Hong Kong will stop using landfills to handle municipal waste by the same year to cut the eight percent carbon emission from waste disposal.

The environment minister also said Hong Kong’s first waste-to-energy incinerator facility will start operations by the end of the year.