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Kaohsiung mulls energy-saving moves

Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) promised yesterday to rigorously monitor and curb the carbon emissions of five production complexes run by state-owned enterprises.

Chen said she would also ask the enterprises “to reciprocate by helping subsidize public transportation.”

“Through these efforts, I hope to bring down carbon emission levels in 2010 to those of 2005,” Chen said.

The mayor was responding to a request by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Kaohsiung City Councilor Chen Li-na (陳麗娜) who highlighted the city’s high carbon emission levels and asked the mayor to impose energy taxes to contain emissions and use the revenues to “subsidize public transportation.”

Chen Li-na said that carbon emissions in Kaohsiung were among the highest in the world, averaging 34.7 tonnes per person per year, or nine times the global average of 3.8 tonnes per person.

The KMT lawmaker attributed the high volume of carbon emissions to the high ratio of private cars and motorcycles in the city and the production facilities of the five state-owned enterprises in Kaohsiung.

The five facilities — China Steel Corp; Taiwan Power Co’s Talin plant and thermal power plant; and CPC Corp, Taiwan’s Kaohsiung refinery and Talin plant — account for about 70 percent of the city’s total CO2 emissions, Chen Li-na said, describing them as the “culprits” of the city’s greenhouse effect.

Chen Li-na also asked the city government to turn off its lights for one hour every week, turn on street lights 30 minutes later and turn them off 30 minutes earlier every day, and set every Friday as public transportation day.

The mayor promised to consider Chen Li-na’s suggestions and map out a set of energy-saving measures.
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