(28 October 2017, Hong Kong) “Climathon 2017”, a global environmental event, concluded successfully today. Participants in Hong Kong, together with participants of more than 100 cities around the world, simultaneously held a 24-hour climate hackathon to brainstorm ideas to tackle climate issues. Climathon was established by Climate-KIC, a European climate initiative. With the theme of addressing climate change challenges, it is and is held in major cities around the world. Participants were divided into groups to discuss local climate change challenges faced by their cities, as well as designing solutions. Since the first Climathon held in 2015, the number of participants has risen. This year, more than 100 cities including London in UK, Paris in France, Busan in South Korea, took part in the event. This is the biggest event of its kind in history.

This year, “Jockey Club CarbonCare Inno Lab” received donation of over HKD10 million from Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust to launch the second phase of a three-year project, which aim to unite more passionate groups and people to work on sustainability issues. “Climathon 2017 Hong Kong: towards a zeron carbon Hong Kong” is one of its events. Hong Kong people were invited to design innovative solutions for the following environmental issues in Hong Kong: (1) heat island effect; (2) energy mix; (3) waste management; and (4) extreme weather.

The Opening Ceremony of “Climathon 2017 Hong Kong” was held at 7pm on 27 October at The Education University of Hong Kong, the co-organizers of this event. Mr Paul Zimmerman, Chairman of the Professional Commons; Mr Chan Kai Ming, Director of Student Affairs of the Student Affairs Office; and Mr Albert Lai, the Co-Founder and Advisor of CaronCare InnoLab officiated the launch ceremony. They put the stickers of Hong Kong as well as stickers of a few of the other Climathon participating cities on a world map, to symbolize the connection of Hong Kong with other cities to fight against the climate change challenge together. Mr Zimmerman shared his insights on the four envirnomental issues. In particular, he responded to the recent tightening of waste import in the mainland China and urged the government to strengthen the waste management policies as well as adopting more innovative ideas, such as install greener double glazed windows in buildings. Mr. Chan Kai Ming said he used to work in a hazard prevention organization and remarked that most natural hazards were actually caused by climate change. Compare to the past generations, this generation enjoyed more natural resources and in turns brought greater impacts to the world, therefore was obliged to protect this place. Mr Albert Lai reiterated that the problem of climate change was imminent, for example, Tai O and Heng Fa Chuen suffered from the typhoon recently, and we may no longer had “business as usual” in the near future, therefore the climate challenge had to be solved without delay.

After the ceremony, more than thirty participants formed into teams and discussed solutions to climate issues in Hong Kong overnight, and prepared to share the results with other participants and the jury on next day afternoon. Apart from group discussion, the organizers also arranged various sessions for participants, including light workout, tour to visit green facilities on the campus, video dialogue with five cities, including Zurich, Busan, Venice, Suzhou and Washington. After more than 10 hours of discussion, the seven teams returned to the lecture hall and shared their discussion results. In the end, “Cool City”team was selected as the winner by the official jury. Their innovative climate solution was to use reflective paints to lower the temperature of buildings and add graffiti elements in order to draw the public attention.

The Closing Ceremony of “Climathon 2017 Hong Kong”closing ceremony was held at 4 pm on 28 October. In the meantime, the large-scale environmental event “Take it Simple” organised by the Education University of Hong Kong also came to an end. At the closing ceremony, the winning team was awarded the grand prize of HKD 4,000 for project development by Ms Vivian Lee, Senior Charities Manager The Hong Kong Jockey Club. The team’s solution will be given to Climate-KIC as a reference for other cities. Mr Chong Chan Yau, Co-Founder and Advisor of CaronCare InnoLab ; and Dr Yu Kar Ming, Dean of Students of the Student Affairs Office both gave a speech. Mr Ching Chan Yau praised the teams for their innovation ideas and diversification, and stated that the event provided an opportunity for further discussions. He encouraged everyone to turn their environmental protection ideas into action, so as to strive for a zero-carbon future of Hong Kong. Dr Yu Kar Ming made a conclusion remark for “Take it Simple”. He said people will pay a heavy price for excessive consumption, and he encouraged participants and students to continue putting “simple living” into practice.

Reference:
Climathon official website: https://climathon.climate-kic.org/