Hong Kong: In the wake of the of challenges brought by global climate change, Hong Kong’s finance chief Paul Chan said on Sunday that the city strives to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 and a long-term strategy to reach this goal will be announced in mid-2021.
Chan, Financial Secretary of the Hong Kong government, said in a blog that in the past few years’ budgets, investment was made in environmental protection and optimizing urban construction to improve the urban environment and air quality and make the city a more livable place, reports Xinhua news agency.
Meanwhile, the government has adopted green finance services and related policies and measures to build and promote the development of green industries from various perspectives and create jobs, he added.
Chan said that in last year’s budget, the government proposed an allocation of more than HK$10 billion to implement various measures, which include promoting the popularization of electric vehicles, phasing out pre-Euro IV diesel commercial vehicles and launching a pilot scheme for electric ferries.
In addition, the Hong Kong government also announced in the 2020-21 budget that HK$200 million would be allocated for setting up Green Tech Fund to provide support for research and development and application of decarbonization and green technologies.