Carbon Care Asia (CCA) held a launch reception on June 10, 2009 at The Helena May, attended by dozens of business, community and opinion leaders. Our two special guests, former Director of Hong Kong Observatory, Mr Lam Chiu Ying, and winner of National Character Environmental Achievement Award, Mr Stephen Chan, shared their views on the need to mitigate the adverse effects of climate change from their own experiences.

CCA Chairman, Mr. Chong Chan Yau, remarked, “CCA was set up with a clear mission – to enable Hong Kong companies and community members to walk the talk on planet care by managing and offsetting their carbon emissions. We believe that it is high time for Hong Kong to catch up with what other world-class cities have done – to develop a voluntary carbon market by generating local demands from the corporate sector and from the general public.”

Dr Trini Leung, CCA’s Executive Director, announced a new initiative entitled ‘Action 450K’ at the launch, calling for all sectors of Hong Kong to join hands in reducing 1 % of the city’s annual carbon emission by 2010. “We believe that this is not only a desirable, but an essential target for Hong Kong to shoulder its share of global responsibilities in reducing Greenhouse Gas emissions,” said Dr Leung.

The first clean energy project sourced by CCA for local carbon offset is a wind farm located at Baicheng, Jilin Province in northeast China, which built 40 wind turbines with a total electricity generation capacity of 30MW.

“By purchasing voluntary carbon offsets, Hong Kong individuals and companies can help inject funds into renewable energy projects as a means to balancing out their own carbon footprints. The projects selected by CCA will not only reduce carbon emissions, but will also bring about high sustainability benefits for the local communities,” according to Ir. Albert Lai Kwong Tak, CCA Advisor and a veteran environmentalist.

To read Press Statement on CCA’s Launch, please click here.

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Photo captions:

1. CCA Senior Environmental Consultant Dr Shelley Zhou with Dr William Yu from WWF.
2. CCA Board Chairman, Mr Chong Chan Yau and Executive Director, Dr Trini Leung (middle), with Mrs Mimi Cunningham (left) from the Jockey Club and Dr Jeanne Ng (right) from CLP.
3. The CCA Board and Adviors welcomed guests to the Reception.
4. Special guests Mr Lam Chiu Ying (left) and Mr Stephen Chan (right) officiated the kick-off of Action 450K .
5. The Hon Alan Leong (middle), Mr Edwin Lau (left) from Friends of the Earth and Dr William Yu (3rd from left) from WWF amongst Dr Trini Leung (2nd from Left), CCA Advisor Albert Lai (2nd from right) and Director Ivy Ning (right).
6. The CCA Team at the Launch.
7. CCA Director Ivy Ning asking guests to join in Action 450K in a symbolic removal of black candies from the backdrop.
8. CCA Advisor Ir Dr Michael Leung (left) with Prof Dennis Leung (middle) from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, HKU, and Ir Colin C.L. Chung (right) from Parsons Brinckerhoff (Asia) Ltd.