In a bid to cut greenhouse gas emissions, all agencies and public schools under the Taipei City Government are to purchase only electric scooters from now on, the Taipei Environmental Protection Department said yesterday.
Department official Yan Ling-chen (顏伶珍) said Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) had signed off on the rule, making Taipei the first city in the nation to implement the rule.
Yan said that traditional scooters contribute to global warming and poor air quality, as each scooter emits an average of 415.9kg more carbon dioxide and 0.18kg more PM2.5 — pathogenic airborne particulates measuring up to 2.5 micrometers — than an electric scooter does in one year.
She said that although the number of registered electric scooters in Taipei has risen from 3,831 in 2013 to 5,713 last year, that still constitutes only a small proportion, 0.6 percent, of the scooters in the municipality.
She said that schools and agencies under the city government have a total of 2,258 scooters, of which only 44 are electric, adding up to a paltry 2 percent of all scooters used by public servants.
That indicates the government could step up its commitment to embracing environmentally friendly vehicles, she said, adding that she hopes that by gradually phasing out gasoline-powered scooters in the public sector, the private sector would then follow suit.
The city has 370 charging points at MRT stations, parking lots and stores selling electric scooters, and the number is expected to reach 400 by the end of this year, she said.
The Taipei Department of Budget, Accounting and Statistics said it had added electric scooters under the city’s procurement guidelines to be observed by all agencies for fiscal year 2017.
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan at 7pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter of the temblor was at sea, about 69.9km south of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 30.9km, it said. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County’s Changbin Township (長濱), where it measured 5 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 4 in Hualien, Nantou, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua and Miaoli counties, as well as
Credit departments of farmers’ and fishers’ associations blocked a total of more than NT$180 million (US$6.01 million) from being lost to scams last year, National Police Agency (NPA) data showed. The Agricultural Finance Agency (AFA) said last week that staff of farmers’ and fishers’ associations’ credit departments are required to implement fraud prevention measures when they serve clients at the counter. They would ask clients about personal financial management activities whenever they suspect there might be a fraud situation, and would immediately report the incident to local authorities, which would send police officers to the site to help, it said. NPA data showed
ENERGY RESILIENCE: Although Alaska is open for investments, Taiwan is sourcing its gas from the Middle East, and the sea routes carry risks, Ho Cheng-hui said US government officials’ high-profile reception of a Taiwanese representative at the Alaska Sustainable Energy Conference indicated the emergence of an Indo-Pacific energy resilience alliance, an academic said. Presidential Office Secretary-General Pan Men-an (潘孟安) attended the conference in Alaska on Thursday last week at the invitation of the US government. Pan visited oil and gas facilities with senior US officials, including US Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy and US Senator Daniel Sullivan. Pan attending the conference on behalf of President William Lai (賴清德) shows a significant elevation in diplomatic representation,
The Taipei City Reserve Command yesterday initiated its first-ever 14-day recall of some of the city’s civilian service reservists, who are to undergo additional training on top of refresher courses. The command said that it rented sites in Neihu District (內湖), including the Taipei Tennis Center, for the duration of the camp to optimize tactical positioning and accommodate the size of the battalion of reservists. A battalion is made up of four companies of more than 200 reservists each, it said. Aside from shooting drills at a range in New Taipei City’s Linkou District (林口), the remainder of the training would be at
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