Taiwan ranks first in the world, among countries with a population of 10 million or more, in the growth rate of carbon dioxide emissions, the director of the Research Center for Environmental Change at Academia Sinica said yesterday.
"As of 2005, [Taiwan's] growth rate was over 110 percent since 1990, the base year of the Kyoto Protocol," Shaw C. Liu (劉紹臣) said in the legislature's Science, technology and Information committee.
Liu was asked by the committee to brief legislators on the general situation of the country's carbon-dioxide emissions and to offer suggestions for countermeasures.
Legislators were largely uninterested in the topic, with only three of them attending the discussion.
The meeting lasted about one hour.
Liu told the committee that the country had gained a certain "notoriety" in the international community because of the significant increase in carbon dioxide emissions and the government's inaction on the problem.
Each person in Taiwan generated an average of 12 tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2005, four times higher than the global average, he said.
"That figure is likely to increase in next few years," he said.
Liu said the trend in Taiwan was "terrifying," especially in light of Japan's success in cutting emissions, as have some Western European countries.
Liu attributed the problem to "much too low energy prices" in Taiwan.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chiu Chuang-chin (邱創進) was very receptive to the coments.
Economic affairs officials, however, were not as pleased.
Vice Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen-hsiang (施顏祥), who also attended the meeting, said the decision to raise the price of energy was a "highly political issue."
"Electricity and oil prices in Taiwan are lower than in other Asian countries ... but we can't propose a price increase until we have reached consensus," Shih said.
Responding to Shih, Chiu said that economic affairs officials should have dismissed the myth that cheap energy prices will lead to economic growth.
"It's the ministry's call [to come up with plan to combat global warming], but the ministry can't shake off its outdated way of thinking -- to encourage Petrochemical and steel factories -- that would produce great quantities of carbon dioxide emissions," Chiu said.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Ye Fang-hsiung (
The ministry said that for every 10oC raise in room temperature in a household, about 6.2kg of carbon dioxide is produced. But "the term 6.2kg of carbon dioxide emissions might not mean anything to the public," Ye said.
"It's better to show how many trees would die from the increase. We have to allow the public to identify with the issue," he said.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday said it opposes the introduction of migrant workers from India until a mechanism is in place to prevent workers from absconding. Minister of Labor Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) on Thursday told the Legislative Yuan that the first group of migrant workers from India could be introduced as early as this year, as part of a government program. The caucus’ opposition to the policy is based on the assessment that “the risk is too high,” KMT caucus secretary-general Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) said. Taiwan has a serious and long-standing problem of migrant workers absconding from their contracts, indicating that
SPACE VETERAN: Kjell N. Lindgren, who helps lead NASA’s human spaceflight missions, has been on two expeditions on the ISS and has spent 311 days in space Taiwan-born US astronaut Kjell N. Lindgren is to visit Taiwan to promote technological partnerships through one of the programs organized by the US for its 250th national anniversary. Lindgren would be in Taiwan from Tuesday to Saturday next week as part of the US Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs’ US Speaker Program, organized to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) said in a statement yesterday. Lindgren plans to engage with key leaders across the nation “to advance cutting-edge technological partnerships and inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers,”
RSS