The Ministry of Education (MOE) yesterday said it expects universities to cut their carbon dioxide emissions by 7 percent by 2015.
Vice Minister of Education Lin Tsung-ming (林聰明) told the Green University Conference in Taipei that the ministry had encouraged universities in Taiwan to incorporate environmental sustainability into their curriculum.
“[The ministry] also hopes to activate [a green university campaign], raise public awareness [of environmental protection] and influence the nation’s schools on all levels by selecting 13 local green universities,” Lin said.
Lin was referring to 13 local universities endorsing the Talloires Declaration to mark World Environment Day on June 4.
The declaration, which was launched by a group of 31 university leaders and international environmental experts from 15 countries in October 1990, is a document showing the commitment of higher education institutions to creating a sustainable environment and raising awareness about environmental protection.
The presidents of Chaoyang University of Technology, Ching Yun University, I-Shou University, National Chi Nan University, National Chung Cheng University, National Taiwan Normal University and seven other schools promised to become model green universities.
The latest statistics provided by the ministry showed that 21 national universities had cut their electricity consumption by between 1.09 percent and 13.75 percent between the 2007 academic and the last academic year.
TC Chang (張子超), executive secretary of the ministry’s Environmental Protection Division, said it was necessary for universities to fulfill their social responsibility by leading the nation to pursue environmental sustainability.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS