HK UST

In late April I was in Hong Kong once again for a series of business meetings, factory visits, etc. One of the highlights of this trip was a visit to the HK University of Science and Technology, where I met with Alexis Lau, Simon Ng, and other researchers who are tackling air quality modeling, policy and other technical aspects of the local air pollution problem. They arranged for me to stay on campus, and so I had a chance to check out their beautiful waterfront location on the Clear Water Bay peninsula — a very nice physical setting indeed!!

There’s still tremendous interest about the emissions trading situation at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, as my talk in Japan (i.e., previous posting) indicates. HKEx issued a press release in January 2008 (one month after our report presentation) announcing that they would take active steps to participate in the carbon market, and link up with another exchange before the end of 2008; in April they also discussed the issue in their quarterly newsletter Exchange. In February, Dow Jones Newswire also had an article about Asian carbon exchanges (quoting yours truly), and so we’ll continue to closely monitor events in this area.

And while in Hong Kong, I also picked up a copy of Matthew Harrison’s recently published novel, Jessica’s Choice, and read it on the plane coming home. You might recall last October’s posting mentioning Matthew’s book of short stories, and this is his first novel. It’s about a young woman who is trying to get Hong Kong companies to practice corporate social responsibility (CSR), but she runs into considerable skepticism and obstacles from the local business community. On several occasions Matthew employs local air quality to help set the scene:

The air flowed in to them from China, bringing the reek of the factories there, the toil that was reshaping the world.

and later:

Outside, the tops of the buildings opposite were barely visible, and the haze caught her throat. When would someone care about that? But she supposed that the haze was from China, from the very factories she had visited….  No one could do anything about it.

The latter is a common HK sentiment — but one that we definitely hope to change in the future.  Congrats to Matthew on a really significant accomplishment!