Our Desk: Our environment needs another Policy Address

Catarina Pinto

It’s that time of the year when the Chief Executive attends the Legislative Assembly plenary meeting to discuss his action plan for 2015. Until April 17, all five government secretaries have a chance to debate their cabinet’s policies for the current year with legislators.
The Macau International Environmental Co-operation Forum & Exhibition ended last weekend, and it made me think about some of the ways in which Macau’s green features can be protected and improved.
While Chui made a pledge to tackle environmental problems, I fail to see its potential effectiveness.
“We will be launching a study on the use of eco-vehicles,” he said. It definitely seems like a good measure, regardless of its delay. It should have been implemented years ago, as it doesn’t even seem such a difficult goal to achieve.
“The government will promote the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions, [the creation of more] green spaces and [the improvement of] the urban air quality,” he continued.
This here seems largely positive. In reality, it is problematic because we have not been told how the government intends to achieve these goals.
From my perspective, a Policy Address should not only inform citizens of measures the government plans to take, but should also shed some light on how the government plans to achieve certain goals.
I believe we could learn a bit more from our neighboring SAR on this matter. Don’t get me wrong, reading over a Policy Address document is a highly mundane task, be it here or in Hong Kong. Nevertheless, our neighbors seem to be presented with a rather more comprehensive Policy Address in terms of environmental issues than we are.
If we focus on environmental issues in Hong Kong’s Policy Address, for instance, we can not only see clear goals and targets, but also strategies the government plans to adopt in order to achieve them. Regarding transportation, Hong Kong’s leader said, “We will set up low emission zones in Causeway Bay, Central and Mong Kok at the end of this year where franchised bus companies can only deploy low-emission buses.”
In terms of waste, he added, “The government is taking forward a number of initiatives to achieve the target of reducing our per capita municipal solid waste disposal rate by 40 percent in a decade (…).”
Regarding food waste, the Hong Kong government said that it has introduced “A Food Waste and Yard Waste Plan for Hong Kong 2014-2022.” “[The plan] promotes reduction at source, food donation, recyclable collection and turning food waste into energy.  The plan sets the target of reducing food waste disposal in landfills by 40% in 2022.”
On this side of the Pearl River Delta, however, the government’s proposed actions do not seem as clear when it comes to tackling pressing environmental issues.
The local government has pledged to introduce “measures to control the emission of oil fumes in restaurants and other establishments.” It will launch a public consultation regarding those measures this year. Meanwhile, we wait.
They will also be promoting the reduction of waste at the source. This sounds promising.  However, how will it be done? The government will be launching two public consultations: one related to reducing the use of plastic bags; the other referring to the management of construction waste. Until we have concrete strategies in front of us, we wait.
We all know Macau’s pollution problems are not only triggered by its busy traffic flow, but also by a host of additional factors. And surely the local government alone will not be able to deal with all of these factors, which are common to the region.
Also, the Secretary for Transport and Public Works is yet to present his cabinet’s action plan for 2015. For now, hope for more transparent environmental protection measures remains.
It seems that, at times, everything is possible when governments put particular interests aside. Eco-friendly vehicles, for example, need to be a reality in Macau sooner rather than later. The time, really, is now.