Air pollution brought from China by a northeast monsoon yesterday began affecting northern Taiwan and is expected to linger until noon today, Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) Environmental Monitoring and Information Management Director-General Chang Shuenn-chin (張順欽) said.
Hourly average maximum concentration of PM2.5 — fine particulate matter measuring 2.5 micrometers or smaller — is expected to reach between 80 and 90 micrograms per cubic meter in certain regions, which is unhealthy for all people, he said.
Pollutants from China worsen Taiwan’s air quality from November to May every year, he said.
Photo: Su Meng-chuan, Taipei Times
While the northeast monsoon is expected to weaken today, another cold front is forecast to arrive on Friday, Chang said.
The agency earlier this year set up an air monitoring station on New Taipei City’s Cape Fuguijiao (富貴角), Taiwan’s northernmost point, to better observe pollutants coming from overseas, he said.
The EPA releases two air quality index forecasts every day at 10:30am and 4:30pm, but the data obtained from the Central Weather Bureau might not always be precise, EPA Deputy Minister Chan Shun-kuei (詹順貴) said in response to media queries about delays in the forecast system.
The agency would release more forecasts during the day if necessary, Chan said, adding that it would also improve the system’s efficiency.
While environmentalists have been calling for reducing the use of coal in energy generation, Premier William Lai (賴清德) in a radio interview yesterday said that reducing coal use at coal-fired power plants alone cannot solve the problem of air pollution.
Pollution from coal-fired plants accounts for only 2.9 percent of the nation’s air pollution, Lai said.
However, Chan said that pollution from coal-fired power plants makes up 9.9 percent to the nation’s air pollution, citing EPA data, adding that he does not know where Lai’s data came from.
Air pollution from coal-fired power plants might have even higher proportions in central and southern Taiwan, Chan added.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods