Hong Kong International Airport is among the top polluting hubs in the world, a UK thinktank has found.
On Wednesday, new data from global affairs thinktank ODI Global ranked Hong Kong’s airport as the world’s sixth most polluting in terms of flight CO2 emissions, and second in Asia-Pacific.
The study, based on 2023 data from the International Council on Clean Transportation, concluded that the fossil-fuel dependent aviation sector would be the fifth-largest emitter if it were a country.
Hong Kong emitted 15.1 million tonnes of CO2, and saw 138,764 flights, in 2023.
Seoul was Asia-Pacific’s most polluting airport, responsible for 16.8 million tonnes of CO2 emissions in 2023. Dubai topped the global ranking with 23.2 million tonnes of CO2, followed by London’s Heathrow.
The research also showed that Hong Kong’s airport was a significant source of local pollutants – it ranks ninth in the world, emitting 4,572 tonnes of nitrogen oxides in 2023.
The thinktank warned against reliance on so-called “sustainable” aviation fuels to bring down emissions, citing “high production costs and price premiums, limited policy support, weak long-term offtake commitments, bankability challenges and constraints on feedstock availability and sustainability.”
It also said that jet fuel emissions are predicted to increase and eat up future carbon budget: “The sector’s own high-growth scenario projects passenger demand could increase by 3.3% annually, from 9.0 trillion revenue passenger-kilometers (RPKs) in 2024 to 21.9 trillion RPKs in 2050. Between now and 2050, aviation is projected to consume 15% of the remaining carbon budget associated with 1.7ºC of warming.”
HKFP has reached out to the Environmental Protection Department and the Airport Authority for comment.
MADRID, June 8 — Pope Leo told Spain’s parliament that escalating conflict, deepening polarisation and widespread disregard for human rights had pushed the world into a profound crisis, in one of his most expansive political addresses yet today. Leo, who has adopted a more forceful tone recently against the direction of global leadership, also firmly repeated his opposition to increased European military spending, urging politicians instead to end the wars ravaging the globe and help migrants. “The world is undergoing a profound spiritual and cultural crisis, which is manifested in multiple forms of violence, polarisation, and mutual distrust,” the pope said in the address, which came hours after Israel and Iran renewed their attacks on one another in the most serious test of a two-month ceasefire.
“Weapons can impose a temporary silence; but they can never build an authentic and lasting peace,” he said.
Migration challenging world’s ‘ethical foundation’
Leo’s speech, which was delivered in Spanish and was received with a seven-minute standing ovation by lawmakers, was a rare papal address to a national legislature and the first by a pope to Spain’s parliament. It is part of a week-long visit to the country in which the pontiff has met with migrants and the homeless, and called on national leaders to stop dividing their electorates. The pope, whose Spain tour will culminate with the pontiff meeting migrants in the Canary Islands who braved dangerous Atlantic waters to enter Europe, said a lack of help for the world’s migrants was challenging “the ethical foundation of the international order”.
He said countries must look for solutions that go beyond “the mere management of flows” and should address the causes that force people to leave their countries of origin, including war, poverty and climate change.
The pope told parliament that “the moral greatness of a nation is manifested above all in its capacity to accompany, protect, and love those lives that pass through the greatest fragility”.
More than 3,000 people died in 2025 trying to reach the Canary Islands, off the western coast of Africa, often in makeshift dinghies, according to NGO Caminando Fronteras. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s government has opened a mass amnesty programme, allowing an estimated 500,000 immigrants to apply for legal status.
Pope calls European rearmament ‘troubling’
Leo, who issued a fervent manifesto last month urging global governments to slow down the development of AI systems, called on Monday for “rigorous ethical vigilance” over how AI was used in warfare. He said that rising European military spending, which grew last year by the highest amount since the end of the Cold War amid pressure from US President Donald Trump, was “troubling.” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has refused to meet Trump’s demands for Nato member countries to increase defence spending to 5 per cent of GDP, although the expenditure has tripled since he took office in 2018, rising from around €10 billion (RM46.8 billion) to more than €34 billion. The pope last month called European rearmament a betrayal of democracy.
Leo also offered some of his most in-depth remarks yet addressing the balance in the relationship between Church and state. He urged protection of religious freedom, saying that faith “cannot be relegated to silence as though it were irrelevant to public life”.
The pope likewise defended the privacy of the Catholic seal of confession, which obliges a priest not to reveal any information given to him by penitents.
Several countries, including France, have debated whether to compel priests to report sexual abuse disclosed in confessions, following scandals that have shaken the Church internationally.
Protecting the seal, Leo said, preserves “a sacred space of inner freedom, where the believer can open his or her soul before God”. A 2023 report by Spain’s human rights ombudsman estimated hundreds of thousands of victims of clerical abuse there over decades. The Vatican has said the pope would meet with a group of victims during the visit, but has yet to offer further details. The pope did not mention abuse by Catholic clergy in his speech. — Reuters
U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters on Monday that he believes that “Cuba sees the end” and, as such, he will have “the honor of taking Cuba”.
The American leader was likely referring to an “end” of Cuba’s current communist system, which has historically been at odds with the U.S.
“I mean, whether I free it, take it. Think I can do anything I want with it. You want to know the truth”, the president added.
Trump’s comments coincided with a total collapse of the Cuban electrical grid on Monday which left millions without power. The U.S. blockade of foreign oil supplies — which has meant that no oil shipment has reached Cuba in three months — to the island has left Cubans facing chronic electricity shortages and frequent power outages.
The Cuban national energy provider — La Unión Eléctrica de Cuba — posted on X that it had restored power to several “micro systems” in the provinces and that power was gradually being restored municipality by municipality.
Read More: Crippling blackouts leave millions in darkness in crisis-ridden Cuba
Responding to Trump’s predictions of Cuba’s imminent collapse, the Cuban Consul General in Italy José Luis Darias Suarez told Latin America Reports that he was unaware of Trump’s latest comments, but that “in 67 years of revolution, a United States president has never been able to do what [he] wants with Cuba.”
“On the contrary, they have implemented different measures, especially measures of economic pressure, to topple the Cuban Revolution, a revolution that remains in power because of [the] popular support … of the people who stand with the revolution, of which there are indisputably many”.
However, the current economic crisis has contributed to a growth in political opposition to the Cuban government. Protests, once a rarity in Cuba, have gradually increased in intensity and scope.
In the central city of Morón demonstrators even ransacked a local office of the ruling Cuban Communist Party (PCC) in a sign of growing discontent towards the island’s leadership.
Trump’s warnings to Cuba contrast the conciliatory tone struck by Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel last Friday, who revealed that the Cuban and American governments were engaged in official negotiations that sought to find “a potential solution to … bilateral differences” between the two traditional adversaries.
However, those negotiations may require Cuba to make comprehensive political changes in exchange for the United States easing its economic sanctions against the island; the New York Times and The Miami Herald report that the U.S. government sees removing Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel from power as a key element of any future negotiation.
The New York Times revealed that, if Cuba complied, the U.S. would then likely allow Cubans to choose their next leader, as opposed to having a U.S.-backed figure installed.
However, Trump’s most recent comments imply that a negotiated solution remains anything but guaranteed. The Trump administration’s actions in Venezuela to capture President Nicolás Maduro and their killing of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei serve as a reminder that the U.S. is willing to use force to remove heads of state, such as Miguel Díaz-Canel, that it perceives to be hostile.
Featured Image: Trump with military officers at MacDill Air Force Base in 2017.
Image Credit: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff via Wikimedia Commons
License: Creative Commons Licenses
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A new UN study has named Hong Kong’s data centres as some of the most carbon-intensive in the world, blaming the city’s heavy dependence on a fossil-fuel-powered energy grid.
The report, titled “Environmental Cost of AI’s Energy Use,” examined the global carbon, land and water impacts of the infrastructure powering AI, saying that by 2030, data centres could consume 945 terawatt-hours.
That is “nearly triple the combined annual electricity use of Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nigeria, countries collectively home to more than 650 million people,” according to a UN press release.
“Indonesia, India, and Hong Kong (SAR) are among the most carbon-intensive grids with carbon footprints 62%, 51%, and 43% higher than the global average, respectively. Poland and Mainland China rank lower with carbon intensities at 30% and 21% higher than the global average,” the UN University’s Institute for Water, Environment and Health said in a report on Wednesday.
In comparison, the carbon footprint of electricity in the US, Germany, and Italy is 18 per cent, 24 per cent, and 32 per cent below the global average, respectively.
Energy in Hong Kong is 67 per cent derived from fossil fuels, 32 per cent from nuclear and just 1 per cent from renewables, the report said.
There is also a water footprint for cooling heat-intensive data centres, as well as a land footprint. “AI-related water consumption could equal the basic annual domestic needs of 1.3 billion people by the end of the decade, while its land footprint may exceed 14,500 square kilometres – roughly twice the size of the Jakarta metropolitan area,” the UN said.
However, Hong Kong was ranked among the lightest for water and land consumption, mostly because its energy mix does not rely on renewable energy sources, which require large amounts land.
As a trade and logistics hub, with around 300 internet service providers, Hong Kong remains a prime location for data centres. Its telecommunication networks connect to 12 external submarine optical fibre cable systems, with more under construction, according to the city’s Digital Policy Office.
The government is building a new 110,00 square metre data facility in Sandy Ridge, 90 per cent of which will be dedicated to data centres, according to a government press release in March.
The UN report said that day-to-day use of AI models accounted for around 80 to 90 per cent of total energy demand, as opposed to just model training. It cited the case of ChatGPT, which was processing around 2.5 billion prompts per day, with image generation requiring a thousand times more energy than a simple text query.
“China’s DeepSeek, launched in January 2025, attracted more than 20 million daily active users within three weeks, and had about 125 million monthly active users by mid-2025,” the report said.
According to the Digital Policy Office website, “data centre operators are all striving to enhance energy efficiency , so as to reduce their power consumption, their operating expense and also their environmental impacts.”
It cites existing policies by the Electrical and Mechanical Services Department (EMSD), which set rules for ensuring the energy efficiency of buildings and regulate the use of fresh water in cooling towers for air conditioning systems.
The EMSD’s Green Data Centres Practice Guide lays out initiatives for efficient data centre design, procurement, operations and disposal, whilst also promoting the use of assessment tools to measure environmental impacts.
SANAA, June 9 — Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis said yesterday that they would ban ships linked to Israel from the Red Sea after Israel renewed its military attacks on Iran, adding to concerns about global shipping and energy flows.
This is why it matters and what it means for the Iran war and the global energy crisis:
How big is the risk to global energy markets?
Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz since Israel and the United States attacked it on February 28 has disrupted most oil and other energy exports from the Gulf, raising prices and causing a major energy shock.
Saudi Arabia has responded by diverting more than 70 per cent of its normal daily crude exports to the Red Sea port of Yanbu.
That has been a lifeline for the energy market, helping to keep down global oil prices.
Any sustained Houthi disruption to Red Sea shipping including potential attacks on shipping or ports could be a big problem.
When the Houthis launched attacks on Red Sea shipping in November 2023, Gulf oil exports were flowing freely, meaning cargoes were diverted to avoid the Red Sea, but not halted. This time, they are being loaded there.
A Houthi source told Reuters preventing Israeli ships from transiting the Red Sea was “a first step” but that if escalation continued, the group would stop any ships heading to Israel as well as other measures.
When the group attacked shipping during the Gaza war its stated target of Israel-linked vessels included any vessel belonging to any company that used Israeli ports and its attacks on those ships dissuaded most companies from using the route.
Who are the Houthis?
The Houthis emerged as a military, political and religious movement in north Yemen in the 1990s, fighting guerrilla wars against the government in Sanaa.
They adhere to the Zaydi sect of Shi’a Islam, and after the 2011 Arab Spring they strengthened ties with Iran and seized on instability to capture the capital in 2014, derailing a Gulf-backed political transition plan.
Saudi Arabia and Arab allies launched a military intervention months later to restore the ousted government and dislodge a group it saw as a proxy for Iran, Riyadh’s arch regional rival.
As Yemen’s civil war ground to a stalemate, the Houthis attacked oil installations and other infrastructure in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates with missiles and drones.
However, a 2022 truce between Yemen’s warring sides has largely held.
Are the Houthis an Iranian proxy?
Iran champions the Houthis as part of its regional “Axis of Resistance”, which includes Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Iraqi Shi’ite militias, though its ties with the Yemeni movement are less clear than with those other groups.
The Houthis do not recognise Iran’s supreme leader as their ultimate religious authority in the same way Hezbollah and the Iraqi groups do. Its motivations are mainly domestic, though it is ideologically aligned with Iran.
The US says Iran has armed, funded and trained the Houthis with help from Hezbollah. The Houthis deny being an Iranian proxy and say they develop their own weapons.
What happened when the Houthis attacked Red Sea ships before?
After the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, and Israel’s devastating campaign in Gaza, the Houthis began firing at Israel and on international shipping in the Red Sea, saying they were doing so in support of Palestinians.
The Houthi attacks in the Red Sea severely disrupted global shipping, prompting Maersk, Hapag-Lloyd and other major companies to divert around Africa — a far longer, more expensive route.
A US-led mission to restore free navigation in the Red Sea involved repeated strikes on Houthi targets and a defensive campaign that shot down hundreds of drones and missiles.
But some Houthi attacks continued until last summer, only ending completely with the Gaza ceasefire in October.
What have they done during the latest Iran war?
While Hezbollah and the Iraqi groups joined the war early with rocket and drone fire after the first US and Israeli strikes on Iran, the Houthis have been comparatively quiet.
The group’s leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi said on March 5: “Our fingers are on the trigger at any moment should developments warrant it”.
Iranian military commanders have repeatedly warned the Houthis could join the war, with Revolutionary Guards Quds Force commander Esmaeil Qaani saying on June 1 they could choke off the Red Sea.
But before this week, the group’s only involvement was a few missile and drone attacks on Israel in late March and early April.
Why the Houthis have been relatively quiet so far is not entirely clear.
They and Iran may have wanted to use the threat of another major energy route closure to warn Israel and the United States off further escalations.
The Houthis may also feel less committed to Iran’s security than do Tehran’s other regional allies.
And the group may not want to antagonise its powerful, wealthy neighbour Saudi Arabia and risk reigniting the conflict at home. — Reuters
Cuba has “absolutely no fuel oil and absolutely no diesel”, according to the country’s Energy Minister, Vicente de la O Levy.
His comments, made to state-run media on Wednesday, underline the severity of Cuba’s energy crisis, which has been intensified by a near-total U.S. blockade on fuel imports since January.
The effects of the fuel shortages were felt immediately, with widespread power outages on Wednesday night sparking protests in Havana. Though the protests soon dissipated, large sections of eastern Cuba remained in darkness on Thursday.
While Cuba has domestic reserves of natural gas and crude oil, it lacks the money to maintain or upgrade its refineries, which are necessary to convert high-viscosity crude oil into fuel oil, essential to electricity generation.
“Cuba is open to anyone that wants to sell us fuel”, Levy implored.
However, Cuba has largely been cut off from international oil imports by the U.S., which threatened to impose tariffs on any country supplying oil to Cuba and severed Venezuelan oil supplies to the Cuban state.
Despite this, Russia sent an oil tanker to help alleviate the crisis in March and China has also helped Cuba mitigate its reliance on imported fuel by helping install solar parks across the island.
Nevertheless, it is unclear if any country would be willing to provide Cuba with enough oil to sustain its national grid indefinitely. There is also no guarantee that the U.S. would allow new foreign oil imports to arrive.
The U.S. is reportedly considering sending the island a humanitarian aid package worth US$100 million to ease the effect of its own oil blockade of the island, with CIA Director John Ratcliffe visiting Havana yesterday to discuss “intelligence cooperation, economic stability, and security issues”.
Ratcliffe is likely the first CIA Director to visit the island since 1953, as the U.S. and Cuba have been staunch geopolitical adversaries since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959.
Although the two nations are involved in official diplomatic negotiations, tensions between Washington and Havana have been rising dramatically. The North American superpower has repeatedly threatened the Cuban leadership with political regime change and has ratcheted up punitive sanctions against officials and economic entities deemed to be linked to the Cuban regime.
Although the U.S. claims its measures are solely targeted at the Cuban government, the punitive measures have contributed to an economic and humanitarian crisis that is harming many ordinary Cubans, with hospitals, schools and workplaces facing shortened operating hours because of power cuts.
Critics of the Cuban regime, however, argue that the energy shortages and the humanitarian suffering in the Caribbean nation are a result of the political leadership’s authoritarianism, economic mismanagement and corruption.
Featured Image: An oil refinery near Regla, Cuba
Image Credit: Marcel601 via Wikimedia Commons
License: Creative Commons Licenses
The post Cuban energy minister announces country has run out of fuel oil and diesel appeared first on Latin America Reports.
NGO Green Power has urged the Hong Kong government to better regulate ozone precursors as hot weather exacerbates air pollution across the city.
Chemical compounds – such as nitrogen oxides, methane, Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) and carbon monoxide – form ground-level ozone by reacting in the lower atmosphere in the presence of sunlight. Ground-level ozone attacks and inflames lung tissue, but reducing underlying pollutants prevents harmful smog.
According to a Sunday press release, Green Power’s director, Cheng Luk-ki, said VOCs – which are emitted through oil and gas operations, petrol evaporation and chemical solvents – should be better regulated.
See also: How extreme heat became the deadliest silent killer among world weather disasters
“In the future, the public’s health may be affected by both high temperatures and air quality at the same time,” the press release said.
Last week, Hong Kong sweltered amid a days-long heatwave. Whilst rain brought some respite over the weekend, the Observatory predicts highs of 35 degrees Celsius by the end of this week.
Green Power’s review of Hong Kong’s air quality situation in 2025 found that 15 air quality monitoring stations recorded “a total of 2,080 hours at High, Very High and Serious levels – collectively referred to as ‘High Risk (HR) hours.'”
See also: How Hong Kong’s elderly face deadly heat inside cramped cage homes
Cheng said Hong Kong was affected by a northern Chinese dust storm last April, pushing up the statistics. However, the NGO also noted that overall air quality has been improving thanks to the city’s diversification away from coal towards natural gas, as well as efforts to tighten emission standards for fuel-powered vehicles.
The director said he had analysed last summer’s Air Quality Health Index data, and found that the nine days ranked as “high risk” all saw temperatures exceeding 29 degrees Celsius, “demonstrating a strong connection between heat and air quality.”
He warned that hot weather will become more frequent, as he urged the authorities to take action in the territory’s hottest districts.
The NGO recommended cooling measures in Tuen Mun, Tai Po, North District, Yuen Long and Tung Chung, “such as increasing greenery coverage, revitalising local rivers, and incorporating more ventilation corridor designs.”
See also: How extreme heat became the deadliest silent killer among world weather disasters
Hong Kong has already warmed by 1.7 degrees Celsius since the Industrial Revolution, research NGO Berkeley Earth says. Heat and humidity may reach lethal levels for protracted periods by the end of the century, according to a 2023 study, making it impossible to stay outdoors in some parts of the world.
An environmental NGO has urged the Hong Kong government to prioritise the climate crisis and strengthen its climate adaptation policies, as the city is expected to endure an extremely hot summer this year.
Friends of the Earth said on Monday that as May drew to a close, Hong Kong and many parts of the world had already experienced mid-summer temperatures ahead of schedule.
“Early onset of extreme heat in many parts of the world is a clear warning of the intensifying climate crisis,” the NGO said in the Chinese-language statement.
“We urge the government to put the climate crisis at the top of its agenda, by placing carbon reduction at the core and setting more aggressive emission reduction targets.”
Authorities should make a thorough climate risk assessment, utilising big data, artificial intelligence, and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to analyse the vulnerability of various districts to extreme heat, torrential rain, storm surges, and sea-level rise, the statement said.
The NGO also called on the government to enhance the city’s infrastructure to withstand the climate crisis, including improving coastal flood defence facilities and drainage systems in older districts.
According to the statement, “global warming is making extreme weather more frequent and severe, and the climate crisis already poses a significant threat to public health, economic security, urban resilience, and social justice.”
Friends of the Earth also called for the protection of vulnerable groups, including the elderly, children, people with chronic illnesses, low-income families, homeless people, and those who work outdoors.
Hong Kong has endured particularly high temperatures since early last week.
The Hong Kong Observatory (HKO) issued the “very hot weather warning” three times within a week: last Tuesday, Saturday, and Tuesday.
Choy Chun-wing, the HKO’s acting assistant director, said at a press conference on Thursday that Hong Kong would see “hotter than normal” temperatures this year and next year under the influence of climate change and El Niño.
Sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific will continue to rise, developing into an El Niño event during the summer and autumn, which will persist at least until the end of this year or the beginning of next year, Choy said.
Scientists have warned that the El Niño weather phenomenon will bring hotter temperatures, stronger storms, drought, and flooding.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has warned that the intensity and frequency of heatwaves have continued to increase since the 1950s due to human-caused climate change. The prevalence of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide – which trap heat in the atmosphere – raises the planet’s surface temperature, with hotter, longer heatwaves putting lives at risk.
See also: How extreme heat became the deadliest silent killer among world weather disasters
Hong Kong has already warmed by 1.7 degrees Celsius since the Industrial Revolution, research NGO Berkeley Earth says. Heat and humidity may reach lethal levels for protracted periods by the end of the century, according to a 2023 study, making it impossible to stay outdoors in some parts of the world.
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