We are going into uncharted territory
"On a day when Hong Kong is hit by a climate-fueled disaster, the president of the free world called it the greatest con job. But the data is more secure on climate change now than it ever has been.The future will be very very different than the past. The climate that your viewers have been used to for decades is not the climate of the future. We are going into uncharted territory regarding the heat on our planet." Benjamin Horton, Dean of the School of Energy and Environment at the City University of Hong Kong, says the data refutes US President Trump's claim, and adds that the frequency and intensity of disasters such as recent typhoons will continue to increase.
WATCH: Climate change is no 'con job', we have data: Professor- CNBC International Seo 24 report
Transcripts here for readers writers and researchers
[Blogger: Skip the questions, which she reads as though someone else wrote them, his answers are what's critical here.]
I find it- on a day when Hong Kong is hit 0:04 by a climatefueled disaster that 0:07 yesterday the president of the free 0:09 world called it the greatest conj job. 0:14 But the data is more secure on climate 0:18 change now than it ever has been. We 0:21 only need to look at the Hong Kong 0:23 Observatory records. in 2024 0:27 was the warmest year in Hong Kong's 0:30 history. And the records go back to the 0:32 1880s. 0:34 August was the wetest August in Hong 0:37 Kong's history. I've been in Hong Kong. 0:41 I moved from Singapore just five months 0:44 in that myself or my family have hit by 0:47 two T10s, five black rain events, heat 0:51 waves. The evidence to every single 0:55 resident of Hong Kong is that this is 0:58 not 1:00 a a conj job. It is a reality that we 1:04 face week in week out every single year. 1:09 And this will just continue into the 1:11 future if we don't address the problem 1:13 which is to reduce our emissions. 1:19 I'll get to you some of your suggestions 1:20 in just a minute. But I want to ask 1:22 about the economic impact. Uh how would 1:25 you go about calculating the economic 1:27 loss? Uh would it, you know, would those 1:30 losses be lessened if there were earlier 1:33 warnings, better preparedness, uh to 1:35 lessen the impact of these extreme 1:38 weather events? 1:40 Well, I think the first thing to say is 1:42 that if you have a look at how Hong Kong 1:45 has responded to this typhoon, you would 1:47 say that it responded perfectly. It 1:51 warned the people of Hong Kong. It shut 1:53 down airports, shut down schools, told 1:56 people to evacuate. Gave people 1:59 information that they should not be 2:01 outside. If you're inside, keep away 2:04 from the windows and at high levels. And 2:07 so, the resilience of Hong Kong will be 2:10 shown when we start to open up on 2:13 Thursday and Friday. The economic 2:15 impacts are obviously significant of 2:18 shutting down 2:20 commerce. But the importance when we 2:23 think about these events is that we 2:25 learn from each individual disaster that 2:28 we're better prepared for the next one. 2:30 And I'll just repeat that because of 2:33 climate change you will get more and 2:35 more of these events and when they occur 2:38 they'll be of a higher a higher 2:41 intensity. So we cannot rest on our 2:44 laurels. We cannot be confident that 2:47 just because we survived this event that 2:50 if we don't invest in the science, if we 2:51 don't invest in the engineering, we want 2:53 to make sure that we're resilient for 2:55 future events and then Hong Kong becomes 2:58 a city that we 3:00 can be confident about that will survive 3:03 the future and therefore will continue 3:06 to have the economic investments that 3:08 Hong Kong has had for the last decades 3:11 or more. 3:14 Now, I heard before today that Hong Kong 3:16 can expect five more storms in this 3:19 current typhoon season. So, one of them 3:22 would be today. But I want to ask about 3:24 the economic modeling, the projections. 3:27 Uh, how are you seeing the use of 3:28 artificial intelligence in projecting 3:31 and predicting these storms, assessing 3:33 the economic loss and the destruction 3:36 from the storms? 3:39 Well, climate change is an evolving 3:41 science. There are many things that we 3:43 know with certainty. We know that if you 3:46 increase the amount of carbon dioxide in 3:47 the atmosphere, the temperatures of our 3:49 planets will go up. If the temperature 3:52 of our planet goes up, then it causes 3:54 these extremes. Monsoon, black rains, 3:58 typhoons, heat waves, droughts, and 4:01 wildfires. But the area of learning in 4:06 climate change is to more accurately 4:08 predict exactly when they're going to 4:10 occur and more accurately predict 4:13 exactly where they're going to make the 4:15 largest impacts. And this is where AI 4:18 can help 4:20 the models that are based upon the 4:22 physics of how the earth works. We can 4:25 supply data in real time which will 4:28 enable us to get better projections of 4:31 what the wind speeds will be, what the 4:33 rainfall amounts will be, where the 4:35 greatest storm surges will be and then 4:37 the governments can make sure that their 4:40 emergency responders are in the hot 4:43 spots of the greatest damage. We then 4:46 can use AI to better understand how we 4:49 recover from these events, which are the 4:51 critical pieces of infrastructure that 4:53 we need to preserve and protect and 4:56 repair immediately and which are the 4:58 ones that we can wait days or weeks to 5:01 reconstitute. So I think that AI does 5:05 help on this. But the most important 5:07 thing is that we're aware that the 5:10 future will be very very different than 5:14 the past. The climate that your viewers 5:19 have been used to for decades is not the 5:22 climate of the future. We are going into 5:25 uncharted territory regarding the heat 5:28 on our planet. And when you warm up the 5:31 planet, the natural mechanism is to 5:34 produce more typhoons because they 5:36 dissipate energy. So if we have have a 5:41 warmer planet, we have to expect greater 5:44 frequency of typhoons. When they occur, 5:46 they'll be of a greater intensity. When 5:49 they occur, they will intensify for 5:51 longer. When they occur, they will stall 5:54 over land, meaning that the storm surge 5:56 coincides with high tide being more 5:58 destructive 6:00 and meaning that you have greater 6:02 volumes of rainfall for any individual 6:05 typhoon than you had in the past. 6:10 Benjamin, as a climate scientist, I know 6:12 that you have an eight-point plan on 6:15 what can be done or what should be done 6:17 now. Are you able to give us an 6:18 executive summary, just a brief on what 6:21 you expect or you hope that governments 6:23 can do? 6:26 Well, I think there's no if and buts 6:28 about this. We we need to tackle the 6:30 climate problem. It is a big problem. We 6:33 desperately need to invest in the 6:35 science here in Hong Kong so Hong Kong 6:37 is safer for future generations 6:40 and the greater Bay Area and mainland 6:42 Asia and indeed for the whole planet. We 6:45 need to invest in community action to 6:49 make sure that this is a roadmap for all 6:53 people, young and old, rich and poor, 6:57 foreigners and residents. We need to 6:59 work work hand in hand with the 7:02 government and the private sector. There 7:05 needs to be new partnerships. So the 7:07 best scientific advice is given to 7:11 engineers to keep the city safe. And the 7:14 best scientific advice is given to 7:16 government so they can make the most 7:19 appropriate policy that yes keeps us 7:23 safe but also enables us to expand our 7:27 economy. We need to make sure that we 7:30 invest in renewable energy because we 7:32 have to get at the core problem which is 7:35 our increasing amount of greenhouse gas 7:38 emissions. If we don't solve that 7:39 problem, the city is just going to be 7:41 hit again and again by bigger and bigger 7:45 typhoons.
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