Hong Kong has, thankfully, been spared serious storms and flooding this year. But we have seen how super typhoons Mangkhut and Hato wreaked havoc over the past two years. While the government has stepped up efforts to protect the city against damage caused by extreme weather, are we really prepared for the challenges arising from global warming?
The new findings by the US-based Climate Central have renewed concerns over our preparedness in this regard. As a result of heat-trapping pollution, the group warned that rising sea levels could within three decades push chronic floods higher than land currently home to 300 million people around the world. In Hong Kong, the coastal areas that are now home to 850,000 people could be under the water by the end of the century. The places to be inundated include the airport, West Kowloon, Kai Tak and Northeast New Territories.
The study is not the first of its kind. The Hong Kong government has had its own projections in the past, although not as alarming as the latest one. Understandably, the findings are affected by the parameters and assumptions. Whatever the scale of the potential impact, no authorities can dismiss the threat of rising sea level caused by global warming. In the case of Hong Kong, what used to be the worst floods in a century have seemingly become more common in recent years. Even if the future is not going to be as bad as projected, the need for better safeguards remains unchanged.
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