What is it about?
Most Asian cities have essentially followed the same development pattern, which consists in transitioning from a manufacturing-based economy to a service-based economy over the past few decades. Yet, do the so-called low energy intensive and low carbon intensive sectors such as finance and tourism really consume less energy and slow down the growth of energy consumption? This paper aims to answer this important question by tracking the economic development and energy consumption in Hong Kong using long term time series.
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Why is it important?
The findings of the study indicated that the tertiary sector indeed consumes significantly more energy than most people realize. Moreover, the Hong Kong government has increased its energy consumption such as electricity consumption and gasoline consumption (due to increase in government-owned vehicles and contract vehicles) continually in the past few decades. Thus, a fundamental change in government policy and its own practice is warranted.
Perspectives
In 1970, Hong Kong citizen generated about 2.7 t of CO2-equivalent a year. However, the value of per capita CO2 emission increased to 13.6 t in 2015, much higher than the 5 t per capita CO2 emission in mainland China. Although the Hong Kong Government has suggested total GHG emissions will peak in 2020 and has set an ambitious carbon intensity reduction target by lowering its total GHG emissions by 26–36% in 2030 using 2005 as the base year, our analysis shows that achieving these objectives will be difficult if not impossible.
Professor W.M. To
Macao Polytechnic University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Energy Consumption and Economic Development in Hong Kong, China, Energies, November 2017, MDPI AG,
DOI: 10.3390/en10111883.
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