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Ma pledges to cut nation’s carbon dioxide emissions

President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said yesterday that his administration would keep working to reduce the nation’s carbon dioxide emissions to help protect the environment.

Ma said Taiwan was ranked the world’s 13th-largest producer of carbon dioxide by the international science journal Nature, up from 22nd place in 2006, indicating the urgency with which Taiwan needed to take action.

Ma was speaking at a conference on sustainable development of public infrastructure held by the Public Construction Commission.

He said Taiwan should not avoid the problem just because the nation was not a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol.

Taiwan aims to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to the level they ware at in the year 2000 by 2020, and to half the 2000 level by 2050, he said.

“These are very ambitious goals that will be very difficult to achieve. This requires a lot of perseverance and the participation of all sectors and the public,” Ma said.

He said that since his inauguration in May, he has been promoting various measures aimed at conserving energy and reducing carbon dioxide emissions, such as turning down air conditioners and wearing lightweight clothes to the office.

While his critics have said that all these steps are far less effective than closing down a single power plant, Ma said the measures would raise public awareness of environmental protection and energy conservation.
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