Lantau artificial islands? Hong Kong’s money is better spent on climate resilience as sea levels rise

Building artificial islands drains the resources needed to cope with climate change while creating new disaster risks and exposing more human lives and properties to rising sea levels and typhoons

In recent discussions on the development of the Kau Yi Chau artificial islands, better known as the Lantau Tomorrow Vision, experts have called for the correct science to be used to assess Hong Kong’s risk of a sea level rise from climate change.

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Building artificial islands in this era of climate change is a perfect example of creating new disaster risks – exposing human lives and properties to the growing hazards of rising sea levels and typhoons due to climate change (the Kau Yi Chau project envisions up to 700,000 inhabitants and 200,000 jobs), while reducing the capacity to cope as financial resources are drained from the building of mega artificial islands.

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Moreover, building artificial islands requires large amounts of energy and materials, particularly the huge volume of seabed sand to be extracted and transported. This will result in significant greenhouse gas emissions, at a time when the Hong Kong government has made commitments under the Paris climate accords and to carbon reduction through its Climate Action Plan 2050.

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China has unveiled an ambition for high-quality development throughout the country; this surely also means a development path that is risk-resilient and sustainable. Being at the global forefront of climate change and disaster risk reduction actions would contribute to a good narrative for China too.