HONG KONG: The Hong Kong government launched a legal bid to unseat four elected pro-democracy lawmakers Friday sparking accusations from the opposition camp that they are being subjected to a witch hunt.
It comes as concerns grow that Beijing is stepping up interference in the semi-autonomous city’s politics after two lawmakers advocating a complete split from China were banned from taking up their seats in parliament for failing to take their oaths properly.
Baggio Leung and Yau Wai-ching deliberately misread their oaths of office, inserted expletives and draped themselves with “Hong Kong is not China” flags during a swearing-in ceremony in October. They were banned from office by the city’s High Court following a special “interpretation” of the city’s constitution by Beijing that effectively prevented them from taking up their seats because of the way they took their oaths.
They lost an appeal against the court decision Wednesday.
The government is now challenging a group of more moderate pro-democracy legislators over their oath-taking, including the city’s youngest ever legislator Nathan Law.
The four are not stridently pro-independence, but Law and teacher Lau Siu-lai have advocated self-determination for Hong Kong.
Law and Lau made their names as part of Hong Kong’s mass pro-democracy “Umbrella Movement” rallies in 2014.
Both were part of a new wave of rebel lawmakers voted in to the legislature in September in citywide polls.
The government said in a statement late Friday that it had asked the court to declare the offices of the four lawmakers vacant.
“The government stressed that the commencement of the...proceedings was a purely legal and enforcement decision and did not include any political considerations,” the statement said.
Law hit out at the government’s move saying it was “a blow to all democratic forces.”
“All democrats will stand firm together defending the dignity of all voters,” he added.
Pro-democracy lawmakers protested outside government headquarters with a banner saying the city’s pro-Beijing leader is “staging a coup and declaring a war on voters.”
Hong Kong launches legal bid against four pro-democracy lawmakers
Hong Kong launches legal bid against four pro-democracy lawmakers
2025 among world’s three hottest years on record, WMO says
- All eight datasets confirmed that the last three years were the planet’s three hottest since records began, the WMO said
- The slight differences in the datasets’ rankings reflect their different methodologies and types of measurements
BRUSSELS: Last year was among the planet’s three warmest on record, the World Meteorological Organization said on Wednesday, as EU scientists also confirmed average temperatures have now exceeded 1.5 degrees Celsius of global warming for the longest since records began.
The WMO, which consolidates eight climate datasets from around the world, said six of them — including the European Union’s European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) and the British national weather service — had ranked 2025 as the third warmest, while two placed it as the second warmest in the 176-year record.
All eight datasets confirmed that the last three years were the planet’s three hottest since records began, the WMO said. The warmest year on record was 2024.
THREE-YEAR PERIOD ABOVE 1.5 C AVERAGE WARMING LEVEL
The slight differences in the datasets’ rankings reflect their different methodologies and types of measurements — which include satellite data and readings from weather stations.
ECMWF said 2025 also rounded out the first three-year period in which the average global temperature was 1.5 C above the pre-industrial era — the limit beyond which scientists expect global warming will unleash severe impacts, some of them irreversible.
“1.5 C is not a cliff edge. However, we know that every fraction of a degree matters, particularly for worsening extreme weather events,” said Samantha Burgess, strategic lead for climate at ECMWF.
Burgess said she expected 2026 to be among the planet’s five warmest years.
CHOICE OF HOW TO MANAGE TEMPERATURE OVERSHOOT
Governments pledged under the 2015 Paris Agreement to try to avoid exceeding 1.5 C of global warming, measured as a decades-long average temperature compared with pre-industrial temperatures.
But their failure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions means that target could now be breached before 2030 — a decade earlier than had been predicted when the Paris accord was signed in 2015, ECMWF said. “We are bound to pass it,” said Carlo Buontempo, director of the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. “The choice we now have is how to best manage the inevitable overshoot and its consequences on societies and natural systems.”
Currently, the world’s long-term warming level is about 1.4 C above the pre-industrial era, ECMWF said. Measured on a short-term basis, average annual temperatures breached 1.5 C for the first time in 2024.
EXTREME WEATHER
Exceeding the long-term 1.5 C limit would lead to more extreme and widespread impacts, including hotter and longer heatwaves, and more powerful storms and floods. Already in 2025, wildfires in Europe produced the highest total emissions on record, while scientific studies confirmed specific weather events were made worse by climate change, including Hurricane Melissa in the Caribbean and monsoon rains in Pakistan which killed more than 1,000 people in floods.
Despite these worsening impacts, climate science is facing political pushback. US President Donald Trump, who has called climate change “the greatest con job,” last week withdrew from dozens of UN entities including the scientific Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The long-established consensus among the world’s scientists is that climate change is real, mostly caused by humans, and getting worse. Its main cause is greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas, which trap heat in the atmosphere.
