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Though there has been an increased focus on climate change in Hong Kong's educational policy and curriculum over the last decade, little is known about the impact of curricular implementation on young people's environmental and climate change-related views, attitudes, awareness, or behaviors. This paper examines the state of climate change education in Hong Kong based on findings from a multi-pronged investigation. The main research questions addressed are: (1) what are Hong Kong secondary students’ understandings of and attitudes towards climate change issues? and (2) is there any significant difference between students studying in local and international schools in Hong Kong? The paper provides a content analysis of climate change curriculum in local and international schools. It reports on a large-scale survey of international and local school students’ environmental attitudes, and on qualitative interviews of their awareness and behaviors related to climate change. We conclude with reflections on the implications of this study for climate change education in Hong Kong in the future and vital areas for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cities have increasingly become the focal point for climate change initiatives. However, how cities respond to climate change challenges and through what mechanisms have remained largely unexplored. This paper develops a framework for local governance to examine and explain climate change initiatives in cities. Based on the analysis of 20 climate change initiatives in major cities and a detailed case study of Hong Kong, this paper has two main findings. First, local governments at the city level have an important role to play in climate change policies by embracing some key strategies (such as deliberation and partnership) and values (such as equity and legitimacy) of good governance. Second, by comparing and contrasting the experience in other cities, our case study of Hong Kong provides insights about the barriers that may limit a city's ability to adapt to new forms of governance that would enable it to better respond to climate change. The paper concludes by exploring the potential role of local governance as a model to strengthen climate change initiatives at the city level. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

ABSTRACT Heavy rain events or rainstorms of various scales often occur in Hong Kong from April to September. In extremes cases, they lead to serious landslides and flash floods resulting in loss of life, and damage to property and infrastructure. With climate change, extreme rain events are projected to be more frequent and more intense in this region. A system to gauge and label the severity of rainstorms would be useful for identifying and communicating extreme conditions in warning and disaster prevention operations. In parallel, a better understanding of the characteristics of rainstorms would also be important for impact assessments and engineering design purposes. This paper formulates a practical framework to index the magnitude and severity of rainstorms in Hong Kong. An index termed as the Severity Index combining the magnitude of different rainstorm attributes is devised for quantifying the overall severity of rainstorms. This index is flexible to allow tuning for specific applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]