About 30 Taiwanese university students joined thousands of protesters on the streets of Copenhagen, Denmark, on Saturday to demand that world leaders take stronger action to fight climate change.
Some of the Taiwanese were dressed as the endangered Formosan black bear, while others wore cardboard cutouts depicting Taipei 101 with a ring-shaped life preserver to show that Taiwan is under threat of rising sea levels.
Chen Yi-chin (陳毅瑾), a National Taiwan University student, said the group wanted to express Taiwan’s concern about global warming and climate change and its willingness to help resolve the crisis while the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is being held in Copenhagen.
PHOTO COURTESY OF TAIWAN’S REPRESENTATIVE OFFICE IN DENMARK
National Chung Hsing University student Chen Kuan-wei (陳冠煒), clad in a Formosan black bear costume on Saturday, said he was proud to shout the name “Taiwan” at an international airport and bring the symbol of Taiwan’s wildlife conservation efforts to Copenhagen.
Taiwan cannot participate officially in the talks because it is neither a member of the UN nor a signatory nation of the UNFCCC.
Cheng Yuan-ching, a Government Information Office official posted in Denmark, wrote a letter to the editor of the Jyllands-Posten — Denmark’s largest newspaper — that was published on Saturday.
Cheng wrote that although the UNFCCC conference was the most important climate conference in history, organizers excluded Taiwan despite their own goal of acknowledging that the global nature of climate change calls for the widest possible cooperation by all countries.
Even Taiwan’s Industrial Technology Research Institute, a non-governmental organization, was listed as being in China, Cheng wrote.
Taiwan’s inability to join a UN carbon emission quota allocation will hurt the competitiveness of Taiwan’s green technology industry and affect its development, he wrote.
Cheng said the organizers should have invited Taiwan to attend the UNFCCC meetings as an observer, adding that it could provide support that they cannot afford to ignore.
Meanwhile, National Taiwan University graduate student Lin Ting-chie said that when he chatted with people from other countries during the rally, he expressed the concerns of Taiwan’s students over global warming and told them that global warming is a public issue that stretches beyond boundaries.
The Taiwanese students have posted the minutes of the summit meetings and what they saw and heard online at blog.yam.com/tisecop15 to give the public a better understanding of the proceedings.
SPACE VETERAN: Kjell N. Lindgren, who helps lead NASA’s human spaceflight missions, has been on two expeditions on the ISS and has spent 311 days in space Taiwan-born US astronaut Kjell N. Lindgren is to visit Taiwan to promote technological partnerships through one of the programs organized by the US for its 250th national anniversary. Lindgren would be in Taiwan from Tuesday to Saturday next week as part of the US Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs’ US Speaker Program, organized to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) said in a statement yesterday. Lindgren plans to engage with key leaders across the nation “to advance cutting-edge technological partnerships and inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers,”
UNREASONABLE SURVEILLANCE: A camera targeted on an road by a neighbor captured a man’s habitual unsignaled turn into home, netting him dozens of tickets The Taichung High Administrative Court has canceled all 45 tickets given to a man for failing to use a turn signal while driving, as it considered long-term surveillance of his privacy more problematic than the traffic violations. The man, surnamed Tseng (曾), lives in Changhua County and was reported 45 times within a month for failing to signal while driving when he turned into the alley where his residence is. The reports were filed by his neighbor, who set up security cameras that constantly monitored not only the alley but also the door and yard of Tseng’s house. The surveillance occurred from July
A Japan Self-Defense Forces vessel entered the Taiwan Strait yesterday, Japanese media reported. After passing through the Taiwan Strait, the Ikazuchi was to proceed to the South China Sea to take part in a joint military exercise with the US and the Philippines, the reports said. Japan Self-Defense Force vessels were first reported to have passed through the strait in September, 2024, with two further transits taking place in February and June last year, the Asahi Shimbun reported. Yesterday’s transit also marked the first time since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi took office that a Japanese warship has been sent through the Taiwan
ANOTHER OPTION: The 13-year-old, whose residency status was revoked for holding a Chinese passport, could still apply for residency on humanitarian grounds, the government said The Executive Yuan has rejected an appeal from a 13-year-old Chinese student surnamed Lu (陸), whose permanent residency was revoked after immigration officers discovered he held a Chinese passport. Lu in December 2023 applied to settle in Taiwan to be with his mother, surnamed Lin (林), who is a Taiwan resident, an appeal decision released this month by the Executive Yuan showed. Lin settled in Taiwan after marrying a Taiwanese man in 2003, but the two divorced in 2011, and after marrying a Chinese man, she had Lu, the Executive Yuan’s appeals committee said. Lu’s application was approved in December 2024, and in
RSS