Kapok: A few good men

The sacking of two liberal-minded… The non-renewal of contract of two Portuguese legal advisors, Paulo Cardinal 簡天龍 and Paulo Taipa 戴保祿, who had been employed by the Legislative Assembly for 26 years and two decades respectively, is rightly causing quite a stir in Macao. Not in every circle though and clearly not for everyone for the same reason. A disclaimer: I know both personally, and I keep a friendly relationship with one.

The story was initially broken by the bilingual publication Plataforma on Saturday 18, and was immediately picked up by TDM news in both English and Portuguese. Monday, it made the headlines of the three Portuguese dailies and two English-speaking media, including the present one. All interviewed highly capable and relevant people, who conveyed the same message: one of shock and bewilderment. Some remained more “neutral”, especially the lawyers whose firms are led by partners who keep a cosy relationship with the power that be, but they all praised the soon-to-be-dismissed legal advisors for their flawless abilities and eminent contributions to the healthy legal development of Macao, prior and after the handover. Thanks to Plataforma, we knew that the non-renewal was “unexpected”, and that no reason, apart from a vague restructuration plan, had been given by the authority, the Bureau of the Legislative Assembly. Hence the stupefaction giving rise to the suspicion of abusive sacking.

At that point though, not ONE interviewee had been of Chinese origin (leaving aside the three Macanese holding Portuguese passports). This is both sad and damaging: Sad because it shows that the press in Portuguese or English has a very limited reach to the vast majority of the population. Are there no Chinese legal advisors, lawyers, legal scholars or community leaders willing to share their bafflement? What about former lawmakers who have less to lose? Damaging because it gave a particular spin to the situation: one of ethnic discrimination. Nationality took precedence over competence. Pushing discrimination towards the Portuguese to the fore risks awakening the demons of the past: prior to 1999, many jobs were reserved for Portuguese nationals and there still exists a level of resentment towards those once favoured.

True, the Chinese press paid scant attention to the matter. On Monday, Macao Daily News, ironically made its headlines on the five-year Mainland residence permit benefitting Macao people and the opening of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao bridge. Since then, the matter has only been decently and widely covered in Chinese by All About Macau, Cheng Pou and Macau Concealers. 

Cases of abusive dismissal within the legislative branch of power, although not new, are worrisome and raise several questions.

Why does the Legislative Assembly employ these legal advisors on short-term contracts, especially now that we have had a thorough reform of civil servants’ contracts? Their duty is to the law, and leaving them in a precarious situation seems extremely unhealthy, their status being worth less than in the private sector where contracts become permanent upon third renewal. For such positions, employment stability is the safest way to avoid conflicts of interest. These advisors could be blamed, for example, by plutocratic lawmakers for not having spotted, willingly or not, the article of the Land Law that forbids renewal of land concessions after 25 years if plots remained undeveloped.

What also of the legitimacy and motivation of the board that took the decision? None of the four members of the board is truly elected (they all ran unopposed) and three are businesspeople: money presides? Two are at the forefront of Communist united front work, another is a direct relative of the Chief Executive and the last symbolizes the vengeful arm of the establishment against legislator Sulu Sou: politics prevail? It is no accident that Sulu Sou, Pereira Coutinho and Ng Kuok Cheong are the ones asking the board to explain itself.

Published in Macau Daily Times on August 24, 2018

Kapok: Not so cool after all

We have known for some time that air-conditioning is not only bad for the environment but also pretty dreadful for our health.

It consumes a lot of energy — far more than a fan; contributes to the “island warming” phenomenon in cities — pumping hot air from inside the houses to the street; increases air pollution; and ultimately makes a disproportionate contribution to global warming.

When it comes to airborne germs and bacteria, it acts not only as a propagator but also as a source of illnesses, especially when air con units remain dirty or worn out. If Legionnaires’ disease is one of the nastiest such illnesses, it remains luckily quite rare, contrary to colds and sore throats, that can easily become chronic ailments. In a previous job, air-cons were so badly maintained that I would regularly suffer from throat infections and voice loss after teaching only two classes in a row. But then, occupational diseases were the least of my concerns — sadly!

With record-breaking heat waves affecting the world, it seems only natural to question the all-out rush on air conditioning to cool down, even more so in our part of the world, where abusing the AC has become a way of life, so that one has to bring a jumper along to the movies, a shopping mall, hopping on a bus or sitting on a ferry.

In a recently released study by the International Energy Agency (IEA) entitled “The Future of Cooling”, we are reminded that the use of air conditioners and electric fans already accounts for 10% of overall global electricity consumption! Moreover, projections on energy demand for space-cooling indicate that without action to address energy efficiency and promote alternative methods of coping with the heat, the share of final electricity demand for cooling will more than triple by 2050 — space-cooling demand will represent 37% of the world’s overall electricity demand! In Hong Kong, the future is now as ACs already suck up 30% of the SAR’s annual energy. In Macao, as usual, ignorance is bliss, but as energy consumption has more than tripled in the past 18 years — soaring from 1,573 to 5,417 million KWh between 2000 and 2017 — we can legitimately postulate that air conditioning is the big culprit.

One recommendation highlighted in the IEA report — besides walking around naked, working at night, taking refuge in a forest and living in white-painted individual and well-ventilated houses with shades closed most of the time — is that policies to improve the efficiency of ACs could quickly curb demand and that such efficiency would bring major benefits, reducing the need to build new energy generation capacity, thus lowering investment as well as fuel and operating costs. Coupled with decarbonization, that would also translate into a massive reduction in cooling-related CO2 emissions.

In China, the challenge and opportunities are of epic proportion. China and the United States now account for more than half of the 1.6 billion AC units in use in the world, and the two taken together contribute to 55% of global cooling-related CO2 emissions. However, China is taking the lead when it comes to forecasted demand and, as reported, “in some places, such as Beijing on the 13 July 2017, more than 50% of the daily peak load [is] related to cooling.” One of the big issues has to do with coal power generation in China, but the disparity between the best available energy efficient AC units and the market average is also to be blamed — pricing is still an issue.

In Macao, this imperative to improve the overall efficiency of air conditioners was for a while factored into policy-making… but then the Environmental Protection and Energy Conservation Fund was terminated in December 2015. Why? Nobody ever cared to explain.

Published in Macau Daily Times on August 10, 2018