The government could allow industries to plant trees in China and other countries to help reduce greenhouse gases blamed for global warming, an official said yesterday.
Under a bill proposed by the Cabinet, authorities would place caps on the amount of carbon dioxide that major industries are allowed to emit annually. The legislature is expected to approve the bill soon, officials said.
Stephen Shen (沈世宏), head of the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA), told lawmakers that companies may choose to grow trees, which can absorb carbon dioxide, in Taiwan or in other countries to help reach the emission targets by offsetting some of their gas emissions.
“Carbon dioxide emissions cause warming globally, not just in Taiwan,” he said.
Some industries say they cannot find enough land to plant trees domestically.
Officials say oil refineries, power plants and steel, chemical and plastics factories together accounted for more than 50 percent of the 268 million tonnes of greenhouse gases produced by the nation last year.
The government has pledged to gradually cut its greenhouse gases so that its 2016 total would not exceed this year’s level.
The government has said it will plant 60,000 hectares of forest in the next few years to help reach that goal.
Taiwan is not a signatory of the Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty on cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
But as a major trader, Taiwan wants to contain its greenhouse gases to prevent other countries from imposing barriers on its products on environmental grounds.
In related news, the EPA yesterday encouraged consumers to help fight global warming by shopping in stores that display “Green Store” certificates and purchase eco-friendly products that carry the EPA’s “Green Mark.”
“In observance of World Environment Day tomorrow, the EPA has planned an array of activities with a central theme of promoting a low carbon economy,” the EPA Air Quality Protection and Noise Control director-general Hsiao Hui-chuan (蕭慧娟) said.
Though the concept of “green consumption” may sound like an oxymoron, Yang Ching-shi (楊慶熙), the director-general of the EPA’s department of supervision evaluation and dispute resolution, said that shopping green means offering more sustainable options to the public when they purchase necessities.
“When we say green consumption, we are telling the public to choose products friendly to the environment when they need to buy things. However, we still encourage people to abstain from buying unnecessary things,” Yang said.
With this in mind, the EPA refrains from giving Green Marks to products it does not deem as life necessities, such as disposable diapers or kitchen napkins, he said.
Beyond promoting the green concept, the EPA also aims to remind businesses to keep sustainability in mind while fixing their eyes upon the economy.
“[The administration] started issuing Green Store certificates to retailers who carry three or more Green Mark products this year, with the goal of raising the certification threshold when more stores begin to sell green products,” he said.
Also See: Ministry to revise rules for cabbies
Authorities have detained three former Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TMSC, 台積電) employees on suspicion of compromising classified technology used in making 2-nanometer chips, the Taiwan High Prosecutors’ Office said yesterday. Prosecutors are holding a former TSMC engineer surnamed Chen (陳) and two recently sacked TSMC engineers, including one person surnamed Wu (吳) in detention with restricted communication, following an investigation launched on July 25, a statement said. The announcement came a day after Nikkei Asia reported on the technology theft in an exclusive story, saying TSMC had fired two workers for contravening data rules on advanced chipmaking technology. Two-nanometer wafers are the most
NEW GEAR: On top of the new Tien Kung IV air defense missiles, the military is expected to place orders for a new combat vehicle next year for delivery in 2028 Mass production of Tien Kung IV (Sky Bow IV) missiles is expected to start next year, with plans to order 122 pods, the Ministry of National Defense’s (MND) latest list of regulated military material showed. The document said that the armed forces would obtain 46 pods of the air defense missiles next year and 76 pods the year after that. The Tien Kung IV is designed to intercept cruise missiles and ballistic missiles to an altitude of 70km, compared with the 60km maximum altitude achieved by the Missile Segment Enhancement variant of PAC-3 systems. A defense source said yesterday that the number of
A bipartisan group of US representatives have introduced a draft US-Taiwan Defense Innovation Partnership bill, aimed at accelerating defense technology collaboration between Taiwan and the US in response to ongoing aggression by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The bill was introduced by US representatives Zach Nunn and Jill Tokuda, with US House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party Chairman John Moolenaar and US Representative Ashley Hinson joining as original cosponsors, a news release issued by Tokuda’s office on Thursday said. The draft bill “directs the US Department of Defense to work directly with Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense through their respective
Tsunami waves were possible in three areas of Kamchatka in Russia’s Far East, the Russian Ministry for Emergency Services said yesterday after a magnitude 7.0 earthquake hit the nearby Kuril Islands. “The expected wave heights are low, but you must still move away from the shore,” the ministry said on the Telegram messaging app, after the latest seismic activity in the area. However, the Pacific Tsunami Warning System in Hawaii said there was no tsunami warning after the quake. The Russian tsunami alert was later canceled. Overnight, the Krasheninnikov volcano in Kamchatka erupted for the first time in 600 years, Russia’s RIA