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1. Dirty air with us for some time, says Tsang

1. Dirty air with us for some time, says Tsang
Leslie Kwoh, The Standard 16 October 2006

There is no quick fix for Hong Kong's worsening air pollution, Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen said Sunday in defending his latest policy address, which sent his popularity ratings crashing last week to an all-time low.

"This is a long-term undertaking. The reality is that we'll not see major improvements for a few more years yet," Tsang told RTHK's Letter to Hong Kong program Sunday.

He dismissed criticism that his approach to the pollution issue lacked pragmatism and vision, insisting air quality was "obviously a top priority" on the government's agenda, as evidenced by the HK$3.2 billion the administration has allocated to subsidize replacement of high-emission vehicles.

But political pundits maintained that Tsang's policy address, while offering subsidies to curry favor with the pan- democratic camp, lacked enough evidence of long-term strategy and originality to appeal to his toughest critics - the public.

"Obviously, his speech has nothing to do with long-term planning or a strategic direction for Hong Kong," said City University political analyst James Sung Lap-kung.

"After the handover, there has been a lot of uncertainty not only in terms of the economy but also livelihood.

"People are looking for some sort of indication that the government has some idea of how to come up with policies to tackle these issues."

The idea to tackle pollution with vehicle subsidies, Sung continued, was first proposed by green groups during former chief executive Tung Chee- hwa's term.

"Tsang is just copying suggestions from the environmental protection community into his speech, but without questioning how those suggestions will be combined with other areas of policy," Sung said.

His comments echoed those made earlier by Civic Exchange think-tank chief Christine Loh Kung-wai, who argued that Tsang has deliberately refrained from linking pollution to public health - and to a larger extent, the territory's economic prosperity - to avoid having to devise a comprehensive pollution policy.

"If an honest admission of the link [between pollution and public health] was made, the government would need to show the people it must do very much more, and do it quickly, to improve air quality to the point where pollution no longer poses a significant health risk as it does at present," Loh said.

Tsang's comments Sunday came on the heels of an earlier broadcast Friday, during which he attributed the public's "feeling" of worsening air quality to the territory's poor visibility.

Small particulates coming from the mainland are to blame for this poor visibility, he said, not locally generated pollutants like nitrogen oxide or respirable suspended particulates.