Transboundary pollutants play a major role in the background concentration of Macau, but the city has to play its own role, mainly in transportation sector
Macau Business | March 2023 | Special Report | Decarbonisation. When? How?
Even without defined targets for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), the Government of Macau has committed to reducing the significant impact caused by the transportation sector.
Since 2009, transportation has been the second biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions, after the gambling industry.
And if we consider direct emissions (which represent 24.7 per cent in Macau), they work, especially from local power generation and precisely from the transportation sector. Transportation depends more on fossil fuels, compared with other industries in Macau.
If we analyse the transport sector by specific areas, we realize that air transportation contributes to the largest amount of GHG emissions, followed by land transportation and sea transportation.
“Take land transportation as an example. Due to the widespread use of air conditioners in vehicles and the slow average speed of travel, the unit energy consumption and GHG emissions of vehicles in Macau are relatively high,” says Qingbin Song of the Macau University of Science and Technology’s Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, Faculty of Innovative Engineering.
According to Professor Song, “compared with fuel-powered vehicles, the unit GHG emissions of electric vehicles (including both private vehicles and buses) are lower, and the transition to electric vehicles has become an effective energy-saving measure worldwide. However, because land transportation in Macau is close to saturation, and the number of fuel vehicles is relatively stable, the existing number of electric vehicles still cannot meet the needs of the current energy-saving policy development in the short term.”
It should be remembered that it has been in this chapter that the Government of Macau has made big bets.
Some examples: authorities intend for 90 per cent of local public buses to be powered by ‘new energies’ by 2025, a considerable increase from the meagre nine per cent reported in 2020; the rate of electric vehicles among newly registered vehicles in the city to jump from 9.4 per cent to something between 15 and 20 per cent in 2025; and Government, according to the Environment Protection Plan for 2021-2025, will also include constantly reviewing the standards for vehicle exhaust emissions and new imported motorcycles and vehicles in circulation, as well as modernizing the rules on vehicle fuels and strengthening the monitoring of motor vehicles whose pollutant emissions exceed the limit value.
However, Macau’s land transport master plan for 2021–30 forecasts that in 2030 there will be 244,000 motor vehicles (which compares with 48,000 vehicles in 2010).
“[Government will] follow the carbon reduction goal of the Macau SAR to phase out the public buses of Euro 4 emission standard, and gradually apply more advanced standards to all heavy passenger vehicles. The Government continues to take the lead in using electric vehicles; and is formulating an electric vehicle promotion plan, to provide electric charging facilities for all parking spaces in newly built car parks and public buildings,” the last Policy Address reads.
“Because land transportation in Macau is close to saturation, and the number of fuel vehicles is relatively stable, the existing number of electric vehicles still cannot meet the needs of the current energy-saving policy development in the short term” – Qingbin Song
“DSPA (Environmental Protection Bureau) has promoted the use of electric vehicles, which may further reduce roadside emissions, ensuring the personal health of the local residents. In my opinion, these are important steps towards having better air quality in Macau,” Professor Thomas Lei of the University of Saint Joseph told Macau Business. Environmentalist association Macau Green Student Union believes, however, that the Government should reduce the number of private vehicles instead of promoting the purchase of electric vehicles.
At the same time, according to the Overall Development Plan of Macau International Airport, the air traffic volume in 2033-2040 will be more than twice that in 2017-2019.
Therefore, underlines Professor Song, “unless the government strongly supports the electrification of land transportation, and the energy efficiency of aircraft and ship engines is greatly improved, the GHG emissions from transportation will not be greatly reduced in the short term (without considering the sharp drop during the COVID 19 epidemic).”
Eco-transportation
“The development of ecological transportation in the Greater Bay area of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau is of great significance to the country,” state three mainland researchers, authors of Evolution, development and evaluation of eco-transportation in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area (2020).
“The development of ecological transportation in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area has strengthened the traffic construction inside and outside the city,” they added.
However, they also stated, “the decrease of ecological environment quality has a close relationship with the decrease of vegetation coverage and the increase of surface temperature in the Greater Bay Area of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau.”
“In order to maintain a good traffic ecological environment, we should first promote the establishment of a cumulative environmental impact assessment mechanism, which is sometimes referred to as a superimposed impact assessment mechanism. In terms of a certain traffic project in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area, the damage is not great, and the environment is acceptable,” the document reads.
However, “if there are more projects in a sea area or bay area like this, it is easy for Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macau Greater Bay Area to exceed the environmental carrying capacity, which will cause irreversible damage to the traffic ecology,” Zhijie Zhou, Jianjian Dua, and Yunlong Liu wrote.
