Hong Kong’s first five-year plan contains welcome targets for energy, carbon emissions, air pollution and water quality. Yet when it turns to the Northern Metropolis – the city’s main platform for innovation and new industrialisation – green development largely disappears as an organising principle.

That separation could prove costly. The Northern Metropolis is a rare chance to design a new urban and industrial system from the ground up. Decisions now about its buildings, power supply, transport and landscape will shape Hong Kong’s economy for decades. The city should not build a 20th century industrial estate and market it as 21st century innovation.

The national 15th five-year plan calls for about 100 national-level zero-carbon industrial parks. Shenzhen is also developing near-zero-carbon pilot zones. Hong Kong should not merely play catch-up.