The nation should consider phasing out cars powered by fossil fuels to reduce air pollution, following the model of some European countries, Premier William Lai (賴清德) has said.
Some European nations have announced that they would place a ban on the sale of gasoline and diesel-powered cars by 2040, while more than 100 Chinese cities are to replace gasoline-powered scooters with electric ones by 2030, Lai said in an interview published yesterday by the Chinese-language Mirror Media magazine.
The government should evaluate when those goals can be achieved in Taiwan, Lai said.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
One-third of the air pollutants in Taiwan are from traffic emissions, while factory and power-plant emissions make up another third and the rest originates from other nations, mainly China, Lai said.
The government needs to implement measures to reduce traffic emissions and develop public transportation, he said, adding that at the least, subsidies should be provided for all cities and counties to develop an express bus service.
The six-route express bus service in Tainan — fashioned after the routes of Taipei’s Mass Rapid Transit System — helped boost the number of bus travelers from 7.24 million in 2009 to 20 million last year, Lai said.
To reduce emissions from coal-fired power plants, they are to be refitted with ultra-supercritical power generators, while advanced pollution prevention equipment are to operate on low capacity during peak pollution periods, he added.
Meanwhile, Minister of Transportation and Communications Hochen Tan (賀陳旦) said his ministry would ban vehicles that run on fossil fuels no later than 2040.
During a question-and-answer session at a meeting of the legislature’s Transportation Committee, Hochen said the ministry has been discussing with the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Environmental Protection Administration about across-the-board adoption of electric vehicles, which should happen no later than 2040, when most developed nations are set to ban such vehicles.
Asked if Taiwan could catch up with China in phasing out fossil-fuel-powered motorcycles by 2030, Hochen said the goal is hardly attainable with the number of scooters in Taiwan.
Compulsory emission tests are ineffective, as trucks, buses and heavy vehicles are producing more pollutants than they are allowed, Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Cheng Pao-ching (鄭寶清) said, calling for improved efforts to promote electric vehicles.
Electric cars could not reduce pollution, because they only trade traffic emissions for power-plant emissions, and full electrification means high facility costs and technical challenges, independent Legislator Chao Cheng-yu (趙正宇) said, adding that promoting hybrid vehicles would be a practical solution.
Meanwhile, Taiwan External Trade Development Council chairman James Huang (黃志芳) lauded Lai’s announcement as a correct policy direction that can stimulate the development of the local electric vehicle industry.
Government policy is a catalyst for industrial development, Huang said, citing the exemption of Chinese electric car owners from registration fees and a highway toll-free scheme extended to electric car owners in some European nations.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching