Abstract
The economic structure of a city evolves as the city develops, resulting in a change in energy consumption. This paper presents a historical review of Hong Kong’s economic development and energy consumption from 1970 to 2015. Based on the official data from the Hong Kong government, it was found that Hong Kong’s gross domestic product increased from HKD 208 billion in 1970 to HKD 2398 billion in 2015 in which the contribution from the manufacturing sector peaked in 1985. Energy consumption increased by 9.3 times from 140.2 PJ in 1970 (mostly oil products) to 1298.2 PJ (including oil products, natural gas, coal, and imported electricity) in 2015. The greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions due to energy consumption were determined based on emission factors for different fuels. Results show that GHG emissions increased from 10.7 million tons (Mt) of CO2-equivalent in 1970 to 99.1 Mt of CO2-equivalent in 2015.
Highlights
Over the past few decades, most Asian cities have essentially followed the same development pattern, which consists in transitioning from a manufacturing-based economy to a service-based economy [1,2]
The manufacturing sector of the city, including its textile, garment, toy, plastic, and light metal industries, flourished because of factors such as relatively low land prices, abundant number of workers migrating from Mainland China legally and illegally, minimum interference from the laissez-faire colonial government, and low profit taxes [36]
The manufacturing sector contributed billion Hong Kong dollars (HKD) or 30.8% to Hong Kong’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 1970 [27]. This value generated by the manufacturing sector increased to HKD 76.9 billion in 1975, HKD 116.1 billion in 1980, and peaked at HKD 143.3 billion in 1985 as shown in Table 2 [9,27]
Summary
Over the past few decades, most Asian cities have essentially followed the same development pattern, which consists in transitioning from a manufacturing-based economy to a service-based economy [1,2]. The pollution footprint of these cities has increased despite the substantial reduction in their manufacturing activities and shifting to the so-called low energy intensive and low carbon intensive sectors [2,3,4,5]. In these cities, the rapid development in the commerce, service, and hospitality sectors has led to the massive construction of commercial buildings, shopping malls, hotels, luxury high-rise apartments, and electrified metro systems [6,7,8]. The number of other motorized vehicles in the city, including buses, light vehicles, and trucks, increased from 50,000 in 1970 to
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