Christine Loh, environmental advocate

Ever since the early days of the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century, leaders of government and industry have consistently failed to heed what Planet Earth has been telling them, says Ms Loh. Her first and main point is that there has been a casual and utterly mistaken assumption that the planet’s extraordinary range of eco-system services and resources are limitless.

And even now, despite the warnings provided in such forms as melting ice caps, loss of biodiversity, degradation of coral reefs and acidification of the oceans, she says many governments have not paid adequate attention to ecological concerns.

The Hong Kong government is among those governments, but Ms Loh does not wish to single out the city because, as she says, this is a global problem.

And Ms Loh, who has visited Greenland to see the ice melt, fully agrees with the drastic vision laid out by the WWF. “There was always a general perception that growth means pollution, but (the feeling was) we have got to get rich before we clean up.”

Tipping points
An analogy she uses is that of running a business. If she were the boss of the a business she would check in with key financial managers to see how business was progressing. “But we don’t check in back with Earth and see how we are doing with the amazing services it provides. We don’t ask questions about Planet Earth.”

Ms Loh stresses that there are a number of environmental tipping points that, once passed, will propel us into an utterly different world.

Some analysts say that China, which has overtaken the US as the world’s top carbon polluter (according to 2008 University of California report), has already passed some tipping points. “It’s not just China,” says Ms Loh. “Planet Earth is possibly tipping in a number of eco-system services… Doing nothing doesn’t seem to be an option. We need to avert [the planet from ] going down an abyss.”

Ms Loh is not against economic development as such. “Development is non-negotiable, but sustainable development is what we should all do.”

Asia as change agent
How can this be achieved? The latest research work by Ms Loh’s Civic Exchange on the over-arching problem of climate change argues that Asia as a region could become an agent of change in future negotiations on climate change. 

 “Although the domestic and international engagement of Asian governments on climate issues has not been as strong as it should be, there are signs that this is now changing for the better,” says the report, entitled Climate Change Negotiations. Can Asia Change the Game?

“Asia can, and must, be a change agent in climate change negotiations, helping to accelerate the global effort to drive down greenhouse gas emissions.”

Asia countries should put forward their own sustainable development and emission reduction plans, policies and targets as soon as possible as the basis for climate change negotiations. Dialogue must be improved, and fingerpointing should be avoided.

While Ms Loh was reluctant to focus on environmental issues in Hong Kong alone, WWF issued its own report on the territory’s ecological footprint, which shows that Hong Kongers consume twice as much natural resources available to each person on the planet and urged the city to make major changes to its way of life.

“As resources dwindle and competition strengthens, reducing the amount of fuel we need would soften future risks and impacts in the fight for natural resources," WWF director of conservation Andy Cornish said.

“In the face of this financial meltdown, clean energy initiatives which reduce carbon emissions will be able to create new business and employment opportunities," Cornish said.

Lord Nicholas Stern, a former chief economist at the World Bank and now an adviser to HSBC, expressed a similar view. Stern said on a visit to Hong Kong that the financial meltdown should not be an excuse to delay implementing policies to cut down on carbon emissions.

“Transition to a low-carbon growth path will lead to numerous opportunities across a wide range of businesses and industries,” he said.

Crunch time
Giant retailers like America’s Wal-Mart and Britain’s Tesco have shown concern about the amount of energy used throughout their supply chain. Tesco will eventually add labels to its products spelling out how much emissions their manufacture generates.

On the global front, the WWF has issued a dire warning about what it called an ecological credit crunch.

“The world is currently struggling with the consequences of overvaluing its financial assets,” said WWF International Director-General James Leape. “But a more fundamental crisis looms ahead – an ecological credit crunch caused by undervaluing the environmental assets that are the basis of all life and prosperity.”

The report, produced with the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and the Global Footprint Network (GFN), shows more than three-quarters of the world’s people are now living in nations that are ecological debtors, where national consumption has outstripped their country’s biological capacity.

“Most of us are propping up our current lifestyles, and our economic growth, by drawing and increasingly overdrawing on the ecological capital of other parts of the world,” Mr Leape said. 

The ZSL’s Jonathan Loh (no relation to Christine Loh) added: “The consequences of a global ecological crisis are even graver than the current economic meltdown.”

The WFF said the US and China had the largest national footprints, each in total about 21 per cent of global biocapacity – the area available to produce our resources and capture our emissions. But US citizens each require an average of 9.4 “global” hectares, or nearly 4.5 Planet Earths if the global population had US consumption patterns, while Chinese citizens use on average 2.1 global hectares per person, or one Planet Earth. 

Biocapacity is unevenly distributed, with eight nations (the US, Brazil, Russia, China, India, Canada, Argentina and Australia) containing more than half the world’s total. 

On the vexed issue of the world’s fresh water supplies, on average, each person consumes 1.24 million litres (about half an Olympic swimming pool) of water a year, but this varies from 2.48 million litres per person a year (US) to 619,000 litres per capita annually (Yemen).