Empowering young voices

Increasing the proportion of climate change elements in schools, on the other hand, could ensure that young people from low-income backgrounds, who may not be able to have ready access to higher education, would get a better grasp of the problem and obtain the information they need to deal with the challenges they might face.

Vulnerable groups, who are disproportionately bearing the brunt of the consequences of climate change, are being neglected in Hong Kong's climate adaptation governance and do not have enough support from the government and society, according to several advocates who spoke to China Daily.

For young people among these groups, unlike the middle class, they may not have the conditions to make their demands heard, let alone resources, such as platforms, knowledge and spare time, to take more action on climate change.

Lee Kim-ming, assistant professor of Faculty of Social Sciences at UOW College Hong Kong, points out that this group of young people may be unable to get sufficient support from their families, schools and communities that "have neither the resources nor the awareness" of supporting young environmentalists.

To amplify the voices of youths, regardless of their backgrounds, setting up institutional channels to let them express opinions is essential. "They can individually do something in their everyday lives to reduce their carbon footprint or help protect the environment. But they may have difficulties seeing how their own efforts can make a big difference unless they are formally incorporated into the policymaking process," Lee says.

He suggests that government officials and politicians, such as legislators and district councilors, hold regular meetings with young people to establish trust and efficacy, and recruit more of them to join environment-related committees.

Ng says authorities should take the lead in showing the public that carbon neutrality is "actually possible to achieve", providing more platforms for young people, and mobilizing future generations to share their ideas and contribute more.

Nevertheless, Ng sees youth power becoming stronger and is confident it will grow. "We are seeing a trend where young people are becoming the leading force in Hong Kong's climate change movement. We believe they are on the way."

Q&A with Natalie Chung Sum-yue on her Antarctica expedition

Could you briefly tell us about your expedition to Antarctica?

It was a 12-day voyage led by marine biologist Dr Sylvia Earle. A lot of the climate change mitigation solutions are traditionally focused on land-based solutions. So our goal is to promote and champion a set of resolutions that can protect the climate by leveraging the potential of oceans.

You have said you saw some "accelerated environmental changes" during the expedition. What exactly did you see?

One thing we saw was the change in the color of the ice. Antarctic ice used to be completely white, but we saw some green dots and realized those are Antarctic algae. The reason why algae are booming on the ice surface is because of the warmer temperatures that allow them to grow.

Did the expedition bring you a new understanding of ocean conservation?

Antarctic krills are the basis of the Antarctic food chain. In the past 40 years, we lost almost 70 percent of the krills' population because of overfishing and warmer ocean temperatures. So one of the things we have noticed is how overfishing is harming the marine ecosystem.