Environmental advocates yesterday said that they are to launch a protest against air pollution in Kaohsiung next month, calling on the candidates in the city’s mayoral by-election to join the event and propose solutions to pollution.
About a dozen representatives from environmental groups at a news conference at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei urged people to pay more attention to Taiwan’s worsening air quality, especially in the nation’s south.
The protest is to be held on Aug. 9, said Lee Chien-cheng (李建誠), spokesman for South Taiwan Air Clear, one of the organizers.
Photo: CNA
Kaohsiung has become a city with the “three highs,” Lee said, referring to high levels of carbon emissions, air pollution and lung cancer.
People want an inhabitable Kaohsiung with clean air and a healthy environment, as opposed to a lot of energy-intensive and high-emission industries, or “cancer wards,” he said.
Kaohsiung residents face severe environmental hazards, which should be immediately addressed, he said, adding that hopefully the candidates in the Aug. 15 election would present clear platforms on the matter.
Taiwan should catch up with South Korea’s efforts to combat global climate change, Air Clean Taiwan chairman Yeh Guang-perng (葉光芃) said, citing goals that South Korea set during the COVID-19 pandemic to achieve net zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050.
The central and local governments must unite to reach a consensus on a timeline to phase out coal use before completely eliminating it from Taiwan’s energy portfolio, Yeh said.
The future Kaohsiung mayor should have the vision and ambition to transform the city to a low-carbon, sustainable city, instead of following its old industrial development model, which relies heavily on coal for energy, Yeh said.
On Wednesday, Air Clean Taiwan said that it would launch an anti-air pollution protest in Taichung on Aug. 8 with other groups.
Additional reporting by Peng Wan-hsin
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
IN FULL SWING: Recall drives against lawmakers in Hualien, Taoyuan and Hsinchu have reached the second-stage threshold, the campaigners said Campaigners in a recall petition against Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Yen Kuan-heng (顏寬恒) in Taichung yesterday said their signature target is within sight, and that they need a big push to collect about 500 more signatures from locals to reach the second-stage threshold. Recall campaigns against KMT lawmakers Johnny Chiang (江啟臣), Yang Chiung-ying (楊瓊瓔) and Lo Ting-wei (羅廷瑋) are also close to the 10 percent threshold, and campaigners are mounting a final push this week. They need about 800 signatures against Chiang and about 2,000 against Yang. Campaigners seeking to recall Lo said they had reached the threshold figure over the
RSS