Legislators aim to pass an ambitious bill that would return the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions to pre-2000 levels by making factories clean up or pay, officials said on Tuesday.
The greenhouse reduction act, which stalled after being introduced in the legislature in February last year because of industry opposition, passed the first round of voting in December and is seen moving toward a final vote late this year.
CARBON TRADING
The bill would also authorize the nation’s first carbon dioxide emissions trading system, eventually allowing factories that cannot cut back to buy credits locally or overseas, said Yang Ching-shi (楊慶熙), the director-general of the Environmental Protection Administration’s (EPA) department of supervision evaluation and dispute resolution.
There was no set date for trading to start, Yang said.
The bill was introduced by the Democratic Progressive Party caucus when it was in power and has won overall support from the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has said he wants the nation’s annual carbon dioxide emissions to fall to 214 million tonnes by 2025 and reach half that by 2050, Yang said.
Without stronger industry regulation, Taiwan will not be able to reach these aims despite various efforts, including stalling some key energy-related projects, Yang said.
“We want to be a member of the global community, so we hope the bill goes through. We will work hard toward this goal, but the challenges are tough,” Yang said.
In 2006, the International Energy Agency ranked Taiwan 22nd in the world for fuel-based carbon dioxide emissions at 270 million tonnes per annum. It was No. 16 in terms of per-capita emissions, higher than Japan and South Korea.
UPGRADE
If the bill passes in its strictest form, the government would require factories and vehicles to upgrade emissions-reduction technologies, hitting cash-strapped small to medium-sized companies hardest.
The government would offer expertise but not money for upgrades.
Some KMT lawmakers want the bill softened to avoid further hurting the nation’s already recession-hit economy, a party caucus representative said.
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:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater