The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) yesterday said it would amend the Haloalkane Consumption Management Act (氟氯烴消費量管理辦法) this year so the country’s haloalkane (HCFC) consumption would be reduced to 25 percent of the amount consumed in 1989 by next year.
“Recently, Academia Sinica proved that chlorofluorocarbons [CFCs], a family of HCFC, is the main chemical in the air responsible for ozone depletion, and that chlorine peroxide damages the ozone layer at a faster rate than scientists previously thought,” said Yang Ching-shi (楊慶熙), EPA director-general of supervision evaluation and dispute resolution.
The Academia Sinica study, which was published earlier this month in the journal Science, shows that a small amount of CFCs — commonly used as refrigerants, foam agents, aerosol propellants or solvents — can cause a chain reaction that rapidly damages the ozone layer.
When CFCs are released into the air, the chlorine element is separated from the rest of the CFC compound, the study said. When chlorine mixes with ozone, it tears one oxygen atom away to form oxygen and chloroxine, the study said, adding that when two molecules of chloroxine combine, they form chlorine peroxide, which absorbs sunlight and breaks down into more chlorine atoms, beginning a chain reaction that depletes the ozone layer.
“Although we cannot sign the Montreal Protocol [signed after the 1985 discovery that the ozone layer was being depleted] because of political considerations, we have followed Montreal Protocol regulations since 1989,” Yang said.
In 1994, Taiwan started regulating the import or manufacture of products containing HCFCs, Yang said, adding that in 2004, the EPA began cutting HCFC consumption levels down to 65 percent of the amount consumed in 1989.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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