Bettina Wassener The New York Times 7 Nov 10;
HONG KONG — Perhaps it is because most Asian economies are booming. Or perhaps it is because a series of recent weather-linked catastrophes and headline-grabbing pollution issues have hammered home the point. Either way, climate change and environmental issues have moved up Asia’s list of worries, often topping any concerns about the global economy, according to opinion polls released over the past two weeks.
“Climate change has consistently been among the major issues people worry about in each of the past three years, evoking a similar level of concern to global economic stability, terrorism and violence in everyday life,” HSBC wrote in a report that summarized the findings of a survey of 15,000 people in 15 countries. People in emerging economies showed the highest — and rising — levels of concern, and Asia is the world’s most concerned region, the HSBC report found.
Among the most worried are Hong Kong residents, with one-fourth of the people surveyed there by HSBC naming climate change as the issue they were most worried about.
In another Hong Kong study, published last month by Civic Exchange, a local public policy group, 58 percent of respondents said they believed climate change would be “very dangerous” for future generations. Significantly fewer respondents called terrorism or the global banking crisis “very dangerous.”
Meanwhile, Edelman, a public relations firm, found that consumers in emerging economies like that of mainland China were more likely than their counterparts in Western nations to purchase brands that supported good causes.
“The finding counters the popular misperception that only consumers in developed economies care about socially responsible marketing and responsible corporate behavior,” JoAnn Soo, director of consumer marketing at Edelman in Hong Kong, said in a news release accompanying the study, which was released Friday.
The study was focused on social causes in general — but “protecting the environment” ranked as the No.1 cause, helping to underline the concern about the environment among Asians.
Citibank found out about that concern the hard way in July, when it had to withdraw a special promotion in Hong Kong and Singapore that would have given Citibank credit card holders discounts on shark fin meals. Considered a delicacy and a status symbol in many parts of Asia, shark fin soup has come under criticism from environmentalists, who say that soaring demand, mostly from China, has led to a sharp decline in shark populations.
In a way, it is not surprising that people in Asia are concerned about environmental issues. Many of the world’s developing economies — unlike those in Europe and the United States — are booming, allowing job prospects and the economy to become less of a concern than in the past.
“Brazil, China, India and Mexico have reached a tipping point in terms of economic development and their consumers no longer need to make trade-offs,” said Carol Cone, a managing director at Edelman. In emerging markets, the “rise of ‘the citizen consumer’ has happened so quickly because battles over societal issues like natural resources and human rights have taken place right in their backyards.”
Add to that a steady flow of worrying environment-related news this year.
Devastating floods have left millions of people homeless in Pakistan. Parts of China have experienced lingering heat waves. And the Asian Development Bank issued a report last month warning that Asian coastal megacities “will flood more often, on a larger scale, and affect millions more people,” if, as widely expected, climate change brings rising sea levels and more intense tropical cyclones.
Of the 10 most populous cities with heavy exposure to coastal flooding, five listed in 2005 were in Asia, the organization wrote: Calcutta, Guangzhou, Ho Chi Minh City, Mumbai and Shanghai. By 2070, 9 of the top 10 cities in terms of population exposure are expected to be in Asian countries.
Hong Kong, with much of the city perched on relatively steep ground by the sea, can afford to be less concerned about this particular issue than low-lying cities. But the city has its own environmental concerns, notably an increasingly worrisome air quality problem.
In March, pollution levels literally went off the charts, streaking past the upper end of an official 500-point scale. In July, the city’s medical profession issued an appeal to the government to do more about the poor air quality.
And during the past week, while Hong Kong was host to a four-day international conference on climate change, pollution levels in the busy Central district were persistently in the “very high” category.
This label comes with the advice that children and the elderly avoid physical exertion — pretty serious stuff, in other words.
No wonder that the Civic Exchange survey found that 77 percent of Hong Kong residents want the authorities — who are conducting a public consultation on climate change — to make air pollution a top priority.
Nearly everyone, 96 percent, supported or “strongly supported” the idea that property developers in the city should be required to build energy-efficient buildings, and 83 percent agreed that building owners should be required to install renewable energy technologies.
Similarly, the HSBC-commissioned survey found that 65 percent of respondents in Hong Kong called for greater business investment and involvement to combat climate change.
Fewer than 5 percent in the Civic Exchange poll felt that the authorities in Hong Kong, Beijing and Guangdong — the Chinese province that is a major manufacturing and shipping hub and generates much of the smog in Hong Kong — were especially concerned about climate change.
More than 70 percent said those governments should be concerned.
“Clearly, these results reflect a considerable desire for a dramatic shift in attitude,” Civic Exchange said in its report.
How far and how quickly the rapidly shifting changes in public opinions translate into actual government action in Asia remain to be seen.
Mainland China is moving more rapidly on energy efficiency and emissions reduction than is commonly perceived, said Michael E. DeGolyer, director of Hong Kong Transition Project, which conducted the Civic Exchange survey.
“There has been a dramatic shift in Beijing in the last few years,” he said last month, adding that this was likely to increase the pressure on Hong Kong to follow suit.
Judging by the surveys, policy makers in Hong Kong and elsewhere have the support they need from the public for more determined action.
