One Country , Two Systems , One Smog Cross - Boundary Air Pollution Policy Challenges for Hong Kong and Guangdong

19 In 2002, Lonely Planet changed the cover of its travel guide to Hong Kong and Macau from a brightly colored temple to the Bank of China building silhouetted against a hazy sky. Inside, the guide tells visitors with respiratory conditions to consider “dangerously high levels of particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide” when planning to stay “for a prolonged period, particularly in summer” (Button, 2002, p3). The Lonely Planet warning marks international recognition of a longtime environmental problem in Hong Kong—air pollution. The air pollution problem reaches well beyond Hong Kong. The rapid development and urbanization in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) and Guangdong province have led to worsening air quality in the entire Pearl River Delta (PRD) region. The PRD covers 43,000 square kilometers and has a population of some 39 million people—904 persons per square kilometer (CH2M Hill, 2002). Over the last few decades, rapidly increasing emissions from motor vehicles, power stations, industry, and construction have resulted in deterioration of the PRD region’s air quality. Regional air pollution first became a significant public issue in Hong Kong during the 1990s because of a dramatic reduction in visibility due to regional ozone pollution (see Figure 1), caused by an almost 50 percent increase in ozone levels over the decade (Environmental Protection Department, 1999). While the Hong Kong government acknowledged this worrying increase in ozone, the Hong Kong Environmental Protection Department (EPD) largely focused on street-level pollution from diesel vehicles up until the 1997 handover (Director of Environmental Protection, 2000). Street-level pollution was a serious problem both because of its acute health effects and because concentrations of particulates were so high. Levels of fine particulates and nitrogen dioxide (NO 2 ) regularly exceeded Hong Kong’s Air Quality Objectives (AQOs) throughout the 1990s. In 1999 alone there were (CH2M Hill, 2002):