Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) Minister Lee Ying-yuan (李應元) yesterday delivered Taiwan’s first Voluntary National Review of its efforts toward contributing to the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development at a seminar in New York.
Titled A Sustainable Planet for All: Implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, Lee’s talk discussed Taiwan’s strategy to achieve the agenda’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 sub-goals, and how it would localize the goals in response to the nation’s specific problems.
“Taiwan’s performance on many goals is better than many European countries and the US,” Lee said, referring to Taiwan’s health insurance, universal education and women’s political participation.
Photo: CNA
However, a more urgent task for the nation is to prepare for extreme climate changes in line with the “climate action” SDG, he said.
According to the Greenhouse Gas Reduction and Management Act (溫室氣體減量及管理法) promulgated in 2015, the nation’s carbon dioxide emissions in 2050 should be reduced to half of the 2005 volume, which was about 245 million tonnes.
To achieve the long-term goal, the government is to speed up to undertake short-term action, he said, adding that Taiwan has also tightened regulations on certain plastic products.
From January next year, the nation is to prohibit the production of cosmetics that contain small plastic particles, while fewer stores will be allowed to offer free plastic bags to customers, he said.
Lee also told the audience about Taiwanese entrepreneur Clement Hung (洪慶齡), founder of Green Group, who established a “massive” recycling system for plastic waste in Romania, and about Miniwiz cofounder Arthur Huang (黃謙智), whose company successfully converted plastic bottles into building materials for “green” structures.
The seminar was cohosted by the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (TECO) in New York, the International Sustainable Development Foundation, the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University, the Permanent Mission of Solomon Islands to the UN, the Global Island Partnership and the Academic Council on the United Nations System.
Lee’s presentation, which was attended by about 150 people, including delegates of the nation’s diplomatic allies, is part of Taiwan’s ongoing push for greater participation in UN-related organizations.
Lee is slated to attend another forum on SDGs at the TECO in New York today.
Without completed infrastructure and training, the expedited sale of new F-16s from the US could become a burden rather than a help, a military official said yesterday. Reuters on Thursday last week reported that Washington is looking to accelerate the delivery of 66 new F-16C/D Block 70 aircraft in response to what it sees as increasing intimidation by Beijing. Under the terms of the original US$8 billion deal signed in 2019, the US is expected to deliver a single-seater and double-seater for testing next year, then deliver the 66 new aircraft in batches of four or five from 2024 to 2026. The officials
SLIGHTS: Beijing intends to display pro-unification messages and prominently feature Taiwanese volunteers in its propaganda videos, an official said Taiwanese officials are poised to boycott next month’s Beijing Winter Olympics, an official with knowledge of the matter said yesterday, citing concerns that China would slight Taiwan during the Games. This year’s Winter Olympics are scheduled to open on Friday next week amid a diplomatic boycott by Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Lithuania, New Zealand, the UK and the US in response to China’s human rights abuses against Uighurs in Xinjiang and crackdowns on democracy advocates in Hong Kong. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said that a Cabinet-appointed task force has determined that Taiwan’s delegation would abstain from the opening and
‘CHINESE STYLE’: Taipei residents do not want smart city efforts based on ‘centralized control, tracking and mass surveillance,’ the campaign’s initiators said Taipei City Councilor Miao Po-ya (苗博雅) yesterday said that her campaign against the Taipeipass (台北通) app has garnered almost 10,000 signatures since Friday, but exposed her to insults and threats by telephone and through social media. It seems to be a “coordinated attack,” as all the messages follow a similar pattern, she said, citing as an example one saying: “We love the Taipeipass. Do not block the smart city plan. Stop interfering with Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲).” Some people had left disparaging remarks and false information when signing up for the online petition, and there have been attempts to disrupt her
INCREASED COOPERATION: Part of the funding is to be used to further the aims of a Taiwan-US human resources development platform launched in 2015, a source said An increase of ￥100 million (US$878,765) to Japan’s annual foreign affairs budget is for “advancing the Japan-Taiwan relationship,” information published on the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Web site showed. The ministry’s budget for last year was ￥1.7 billion; it was increased to ￥1.8 billion for this year. The ministry wrote that the additional funding was to be used for “cooperating with allies and like-minded countries to safeguard the universal values of the international community.” Regarding Taiwan specifically, the ministry said that it was “responding to an increasingly complex security and economic environment,” and that it aimed to “strengthen diplomacy and cooperation
RSS