Macau raises efforts to be included in Kyoto Protocol

By Kimberly Johans
Published in The Macau Daily Times
December 17, 2007 (424 words)

The secretary for Transport and Public Works, Mr Lau Si Io, attended a carnival organised by several government departments to mark Macau’s effort to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, highlighting the effects the city’s pollution was having on the environment.

According to the director of the Macau meteorological and geo-physical bureau, Mr Fong Soi-kun, the Macau government is intending to apply to the Central Government to submit documents to the United Nations to allow Macau to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, once approval had been obtained from the central government.

The process of application is expected to take at least four months and should be completed by April, 2008.

Mr Fong spoke to the media explaining that the Macau government had devised a plan and it already had a list of the cause of the most polluted gas emissions causing climate changes in Macau. “Macau will come up with policies to limit the emissions of pollutant gases,” he said, adding that they had obtained a study that showed Macau was suffering climate changes and as such, cause our warmer winters.

“Between 2008 and 2012, Macau wants to reduce gas emissions and pollutants by between 5 and 10 percent in order to save energy and reduce pollution,” he said.

He added that the various government bodies were raising public awareness in order for the general public to protect and save the environment.

Also present at the carnival were Mr Franklin Willemyns, Executive Director of Macao Water and Deputy Director of the Macau Meteorological and Geophysical Bureau Mr Antonio Viseu.

The current raised awareness of the Kyoto protocol stems from the recent United Nations climate change summit that took place in Bali, Indonesia, which culminated on Saturday, in the United States and Canada accepting the so-called ‘Bali roadmap’ towards a full agreement to prevent further irreversible damage to the planet’s ecosystem and atmosphere.

Hong Kong adopted the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its Kyoto Protocol, effective May 5, 2003. Macau, until now, had not yet applied.

Meanwhile, China as a developing nation, has ratified the Kyoto Protocol but have no obligation beyond monitoring and reporting emissions. Various predictions see China overtaking the US in total greenhouse emissions between late 2007 and 2010.

in June this year, China brought forth a 62-page climate change plan and promised to put climate change at the top yet insisted that developed countries had an “unshirkable responsibility” to take the lead and that the “common but differentiated responsibility” principle, as agreed up in the UNFCCC should be applied.