Why Antarctica matters for Hong Kong – even from 12,000 kilometres

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Words by Benjamin Horton, dean of the School of Energy and Environment at City University of Hong Kong.

When Hong Kong residents picture climate risk, they tend to think close to home: typhoons spinning up in the South China Sea, a black rainstorm flooding underpasses or summer heat that seems to arrive earlier each year.

Antarctica can feel like the opposite of immediate – remote, silent and irrelevant to daily life in a city of neon, harbours and high-rises. Yet what happens at the bottom of the planet is quietly shaping Hong Kong’s future above the waterline.

First, Antarctica is not just a frozen continent; it is Earth’s largest storehouse of fresh water locked in ice. If that ice sheet loses mass – through surface melting or warmer oceans eroding ice shelves from below – sea levels rise.