Hong Kong’s financial secretary slammed the US’s pullback from environment-friendly policies, while drawing attention to the city’s goals to boost global green finance.
“The US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and the overwhelming policy shift back to fossil fuels is disappointing,” Paul Chan said at the Hong Kong Green Finance Association’s annual forum on Monday, part of Hong Kong Green Week. “It weakens collective commitment” and complicates the path for climate finance flows from richer nations to emerging economies, he added.
US President Donald Trump’s anti-climate agenda risks derailing the commitment that all countries made at COP29 in November to triple annual climate finance by 2035. The US contributed about US$11 billion ($14.14 billion) to climate finance in 2024, among the largest from individual countries, but that was dominated by costly loans rather than grants.
Chan’s comments came as Hong Kong suspended school classes under the Tropical Cyclone Warning Signal No. 8. Hong Kong is routinely affected by severe weather phenomena such as typhoons and heavy rainfall, and the intensity of rains has worsened in recent years.
Chan said that the city is aiming to boost its role in transition finance, with the Hong Kong Monetary Authority on Monday launching a consultation to expand its rules for green finance to include targets for emissions reduction for hard-to-abate sectors.
Known as the Hong Kong Taxonomy, a new version will also include rules to grow the financing of infrastructure and other sectors for dealing with the impact of climate change.
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The financial secretary added that Hong Kong is on track to meet its goal to reduce carbon emissions by 50% before 2035 from a 2005 baseline.
