Large-scale demonstrations and parades aimed at raising public awareness of the pollution crisis threatening the survival of the next generation will be held on Dec. 8 in eight cities and counties around the country, organizers said yesterday.
The "Anti-Global Warming" demonstrations are being organized by individual members of the intelligentsia and more than 150 environmental protection groups including the Taiwan Environmental Protection Union (TEPU), the Society of Wilderness, the Homemaker's Union and Foundation, and Taiwan Academy of Ecology, TEPU Secretary-General Ho Tsung-hsun (何宗勳) said.
Ho said the event is organized out of concern with Taiwan's lack of progress in cutting domestic emissions of carbon dioxide, as proven by failed efforts to push for the first-reading of a draft law on greenhouse gas reduction in the legislature.
The event is also aimed at discouraging the private Formosa Plastics Group (
If the project is given the green light by the government, it will lead to an increase in Taiwan's carbon dioxide emissions by 15 million tonnes per year, Ho said, adding that such an amount would drive Taiwan up the global ranking of per capita carbon dioxide emissions from its current position at 22nd.
Citing the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change resolution, Ho said countries around the world are being reminded that global greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced significantly by the year 2015 because a global temperature rise of 2oC could cause disasters threatening the survival of all creatures on the planet.
Starting Saturday, "anti-global warming" rallies will be held in eight cities and counties -- Kaohsiung, Pingtung, Tainan, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua, Taichung and Hualien before the large-scale march on Dec. 8.
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
‘SPEY’ REACTION: Beijing said its Eastern Theater Command ‘organized troops to monitor and guard the entire process’ of a Taiwan Strait transit China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early yesterday, 61 of which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait. It was not clear why so many planes were scrambled, said the Ministry of National Defense, which tabulated the flights. The aircraft were sent in two separate tranches, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday “confirmed and welcomed” a transit by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Spey, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, through the Taiwan Strait a day earlier. The ship’s transit “once again [reaffirmed the Strait’s] status as international waters,” the foreign ministry said. “Such transits by
RSS