Building Services Engineers Perceptions of Climate Change - the Case of Hong Kong

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7.3 Comments and Recommendations

7.4 Conclusion of the study

BIBLIOGRAPHY

APPENDIX 1 QUESTIONNAIRE SURVEY

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Chapter 1 Introduction

1.1 Climate Change and Building Services Engineering

Climate change, also known as ‘global warming’, is occurring and it is inevitable, and has become one of the most critical challenges that we have ever faced in our history. The impacts of climate change can be felt, observed and detected. We are now having a warmer climate and freaky weather events are becoming more often during the past years. Sea level rise is measured all around the world. Glaciers are melting. Climate change is truly occurring.

Building services engineering is about bringing the building to life – the services are acting as the heart, the lungs, and the blood vessels of the buildings. Building services provide all the services needed in the buildings, which may be categorized into four main types – air, fire, water and electricity.

Climate change and building services engineering are closely related to each other. Global warming would mean more energy is used for cooling the indoor environment in buildings, and eventually more energy is used and more heat is rejected back to the environment and carbon dioxide emissions would increase since the electricity consumption is increased. Buildings took up a huge part in energy consumption all over the world, and building services is the major energy consuming part of the building. Hence building services engineers has the opportunity and responsibility to engineer the systems in order to mitigate the impacts on climate change by reducing energy consumption through optimizing energy efficiency. Read more on chapter 2 of this paper.

1.2 Climate Change in Hong Kong

Climate change is a global event and Hong Kong cannot be unaffected by this global event. Evidences of climate change have been observed in Hong Kong and the impacts of climate change in Hong Kong will continue to get worse if nothing is done to mitigate the impacts. Read more on chapter 3 of this paper.

1.3 Research objectives

Climate change is about greenhouse gases emissions and the major emission in Hong Kong is from the energy sector, whilst the major electricity consumer in Hong Kong are buildings, and building services engineers play a key role in determining the energy use in the buildings. As a potential building services practitioner I doubt that whether building services engineers in Hong Kong are aware of climate change. It appears to me that the technologies and knowledge are available but people in the industry may not be aware of the issue.

This paper explores the global climate change perceptions and the opinion among the local building services engineers (including the professionals, the students and the academics) in Hong Kong. In this study I would like to find out how much building services engineers and to-be-engineers are concerned about global climate change and quantify the opinions and knowledge on “global climate change”, “climate change in Hong Kong” and “building services engineering in Hong Kong” as well as their perceptions towards the perceptions and actions from different groups.

This study is not intended to make direct comparison with other studies done or doing worldwide, but will become a supplement in this research area and may act as an exploratory study. Read more on chapter 4 of this paper.

1.4 Methodology

Web-based surveys are sent to the building services engineering professionals, students and academics. The participants would be completing the questionnaires by ranking the statements from 1 to 7 in terms of the degree they agree on the statement, where “1” is absolutely disagree and “7” is absolutely agree. The questionnaire would be divided into five parts, namely “global climate change”, “climate change in Hong Kong”, “building services engineering and climate change”, “perceptions on different bodies” and “actions of different bodies”. Details are provided in chapter 5 of this paper.

1.5 Structure of the dissertation

There are 9 chapters in this paper.

In Chapter 2, brief descriptions on the background of the studies on climate change issues and some information for what building services engineering is about will be provided and follow by demonstrating how building services is related to climate change issues.

In Chapter 3, demonstrations on the current climate change issues in Hong Kong would be provided, including the evidence and potential impacts of climate change in Hong Kong, and the responses on the climate change issue from different bodies in Hong Kong.

In Chapter 4, descriptions on the research objectives and implications will be provided.

In Chapter 5, details on the methodology used in this study will be provided.

In Chapter 6, the results from the returned questionnaires will be provided and will be followed by the findings and analysis.

In Chapter 7, the limitations of this study will be demonstrated and explained.

In Chapter 8, the discussions on the findings will be provided.

In Chapter 9, will be a conclusion to the study. Recommendations will be given in the end of the chapter.

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Chapter 2 Climate Change and Building Services Engineering

2.1 Introduction

In this chapter I will briefly describe what climate change and building services engineering are, define the terminologies about climate change, as well as the causes and the impacts of the global climate change, and also how building services engineering and climate change are correlated, in order to provide a clear background for the study.

Human beings should concern about climate change because we are part of the planet where we have evolved and flourished in. However,