Greenhouse gas emissions could wreak ecological havoc on Taiwan's woodlands, sea life and endangered birds by the end of the next century, the Environmental Protection Administration warned yesterday.
According to results of a new study carried out by experts from National Taiwan University, National Taiwan Ocean University and National Central University, in 2100, Taiwan's ecosystem will face tremendous pressure from rising global temperatures triggered by increasing levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
The research was based on UN data predicting future scenarios involving estimated levels of greenhouse gases. The experts used models to predict global climate changes between 1990 and 2100, concluding that global temperatures will rise by an average of between 1.4?C and 5.8?C and that sea levels will rise by between 9cm and 88cm.
Project investigator Tung Ching-pin (童慶斌), an associate professor at National Taiwan University's Department of Bioenvironmental Systems Engineering, said that wintering sites for the rare black-faced spoonbills near the estuary of Tsengwen River in Tainan County would be flooded by rising sea levels by 2100.
"We predict that one-third of the bird's wintering sites will be invaded by seawater, which might significantly change the coastal ecological system," Tung told reporters at a press conference.
In addition, Tung said, rising temperatures could force the Formosan Landlocked Salmon (
Tung said that forests would become fragile because functions preserving water and maintaining biodiversity would be degraded.
"From birds in the trees to coral in the sea, nothing can be excluded from future impacts of global climate change," Tung said.
Tung also said that people need to pay more attention to long-term climate change as well as more immediate causes, such as floods, drought and El Nino.
Tung advised the government to adopt long-term preventive strategies to combat the dangers posed to endemic species, local eco-systems and even society.
Tung said that effort had been made by different sectors, such as energy, agriculture, ecological conservation, water resources preservation and others. However, the lack of a powerful, high-level institutional approach to tackling greenhouse gas emissions remained a huge problem, he said.
According to Wu Sheng-jong (吳盛忠), deputy director-general of the administration's Bureau of Air Quality Protection and Noise Control, Taiwan's greenhouse gas emissions have increased from 113 million tonnes in 1990 to 218 million tonnes in 2000.
Wu said national policies should be adjusted in order to cut domestic greenhouse gas emissions.
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