Sea Level Rise and Infrastructural Imaginations in Hong Kong 海平面上升的基建想像：香港的基建與風險 Project Website In 2025, Hong Kong was hit with two T10 typhoons and 5 black rainstorms, marking a record-breaking storm season. Flooding paralysed many parts of the city and it took us a few days to bounce back to normal – but imagine how much worse the impact would be if sea levels were 1m higher? This could be Hong Kong’s reality as soon as 2070 if high emissions continue. This is because our polar regions are melting rapidly, driving accelerating sea level rise. Yet this unprecedented ice melt in the Arctic and Antarctica remain hidden, out of sight and out of mind. This talk unpacks the looming threats from our cryosphere – how do melting glaciers & ice sheets impact us in Hong Kong? Besides the 26 low-lying areas that are vulnerable to typhoons today, which parts of our city will be hit by permanent submersion from rising seas? What coastal defences is Hong Kong mounting? Which sectors are most vulnerable? How can we tap the inevitable trillion-dollar adaptation opportunity? If we don’t know the full extent of the risks ahead, how can we prepare for them? This seminar will help you “get future fit” so that you can see the transformative adaptation opportunities and possibles to protect our city. Small ideas catalysed from this session can result in seismic changes – join us to “Re-IMAGINE HK” so that we can thrive in a flooded future. Date: 11/2 Time 1430-1630 Foo Yuan Building ROOM 221 (FYB 221) Speakers: Debra Tan Tan heads CWR, a non-profit that aims to “mainstream” water & climate risks into financial decision-making & corporate strategies. She built CWR from an idea into a 'go-to' resource in the global climate water risk conversation. Today, CWR’s decade+ of work on assessing & valuing risk exposure to rising water scarcity & coastal threats is highlighted in TCFD’s Knowledge Hub, technical guides for disclosure (IFRS/CDSB, SBTN, CDP) and various textbooks on water risk valuation. Tan’s research & reports unpacking water risks with financial institutions & government-related organisations in China were ground-breaking and instrumental in understanding not just China's but future global water challenges; they are widely cited: by media, finance to the IPCC. She is published by Springer Nature, Palgrave MacMillan, China policy journals and was a contributing author to the latest IPCC report “Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability”. Tan has advised numerous corporates, MNCs & FIs and currently sits on the Board of Governors of the International Water Management Institute (IWMI). Before water, Tan spent over a decade in finance. She spends her spare time exploring Himalayan glaciers. Prof. Yuan Xu Yuan Xu is an associate professor in the Department of Geography and Resource Management and leads the Centre for Uban Innovations in the Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies as well as the Environmental Policy and Governance Programme in the Institute of Environment, Energy and Sustainability , The Chinese University of Hong Kong. He has published widely on energy and environmental policy, governance and strategy, and technological and industrial development, covering fossil fuels and renewables. He has been the President of the Professional Association for China’s Environment (PACE) since 2022. Before joining CUHK in August 2010, he received a Ph.D. degree in public policy from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University and was a postdoctoral research associate in the Industrial Performance Center, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He also holds an M.S. degree in climatology, a B.S. degree in atmospheric sciences and a bachelor's degree in economics, all from Peking University. Moderator Prof. Ka-ming Wu Ka-ming is actively engaged in public scholarship and knowledge transfer on sustainability, serving as Director of the Centre for Social Innovation Studies under the Hong Kong Institute of Asia Pacific Studies of CUHK. She has led projects such as Plastic-free Hong Kong , Plastic-free Together and Best with Less: the Hong Kong Tertiary Sustainable Packaging Design Competition, which engaged students in fieldwork, design thinking, exhibitions, and collaboration with communities, NGOs, and industry partners. Through these initiatives, Ka-ming rethinks the role of humanities scholarship in sustainability education and develops pedagogies oriented toward public engagements and ecological futures. Her goal is to establish as a critical cultural studies scholar on sustainability, making research and pedagogical interventions in our current poly-crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and social inequalities.