A nationwide assessment on how many political candidates kept their 2014 campaign pledges to preserve a sustainable environment found that Taipei, Taichung, Tainan, Kaohsiung and Yilan County outperformed other cities and counties in the nation.
Taiwan Environmental Protection Union (TEPU) founder Shih Shin-min (施信民) said that the assessment was made based on 20 appeals for a sustainable environment proposed by the environmental groups, which the candidates running for mayoral or county commissioner posts in the 2014 nine-in-one elections had promised to keep if they were elected.
The assessment could be considered a mid-term exam for these officials, he said.
TEPU vice chairman Liu Jih-jian (劉志堅) said that the public used to pay more attention to how the central government enforced environmental policies, but how local officials execute such policies is equally important.
The evaluation was conducted by representatives from the environmental groups, Liu said.
For each of the 20 appeals, which ranged from use of “renewable” energy, garbage disposal and public hazards control to land use issues, the representatives were asked to pick the cities or counties that outperformed their peers and give them an “A,” Liu said.
The places that drew the most A’s would be considered to be enforcing environmentally sustainable policies, he said.
Approximately half of the cities or counties provided information for the evaluation, and only a few refused to provide any detailed data, he said.
Taipei, Yilan County, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung received five A’s overall.
They were followed by New Taipei City, Taoyuan, Pingtung County and Changhua County, which received three or four A’s.
Keelung, as well as Nantou, Hualien, Taitung, Hsinchu, Miaoli and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties each received just one A.
The evaluation showed that there is still room for improvement in the development of “renewable” energies, control of public hazards, land use and promotion of “green” transportation, the TEPU said.
Use of private motor vehicles accounted for 72.8 percent of the transportation sector last year, including 47.5 percent for motorcycles and 24.2 percent for cars, Liu said.
While car use had dropped 0.6 percent compared with a similar survey in 2014, he said the use of motorcycles rose by 1 percent.
This is a warning that the nation’s transportation system is heading toward an “environmentally unsustainable” direction, he said.
Taiwan Watch Institute secretary-general Herlin Hsieh (謝和霖), who was in charge of evaluating garbage disposal performances, said that though the six special municipalities have more resources to handle garbage, other cities and counties should not use the situation as an excuse not to try to make improvements.
“They could charge a higher garbage handling fee. Unfortunately, local governments are afraid to bring this matter up at city council or county council meetings,” he said.
Hsieh said that the evaluation helped TEPU identify inconsistencies between numbers provided by the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) and the local governments’ statistics.
While the EPA said that 3 million tonnes of garbage is burned in the nation’s incinerators every year, data from incinerator operators showed that 400 million tonnes have actually been burned.
TEPU chairman Liu Gin-show (劉俊秀) said the environmental groups would conduct two more assessments before the 2018 elections.
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