If Taiwan fails to curb its carbon dioxide emissions over the next 30 years, rising sea levels and storm surges would pose a threat to millions of residents in the six special municipalities, Greenpeace Taiwan said yesterday as it urged the central and local governments to take action.
The call came as the environmental group released a report on its analysis of the problems that Taiwan could face as the global sea level rises, warning that the seas around Taiwan are rising at twice the global average due to the nation’s location and influence from ocean currents.
Greenpeace climate and energy campaign director Lena Chang (張皪心) told a news conference in Taipei that the analysis showed that global warming has the potential to severely affect Taiwan, but it is not just the central government that needs to take action, but also the mayors of the six cities.
Photo courtesy of Greenpeace Taiwan
The special municipalities account for more than 70 percent of Taiwan’s population, “so their mayors have a responsibility to protect their residents’ lives and property from threats,” she said.
Typhoons and tropical storms would cause sea levels to rise further, and strong winds brought by such systems can cause storm surges, in which seawater flows inland, the report said.
Taiwan suffered storm surge damage during Typhoon Dujuan in 2015 and Typhoon Megi in 2016, which led to flooding in multiple locations across the nation, it added.
Citing sea-level research conducted by the US-based non-profit organization Climate Central, the report said 1,398km2 of Taiwan’s land mass would be inundated by seawater if no aggressive action is taken to curb carbon emissions before 2050.
This could affect 1.2 million people, while storm surges could expand the risk to more than 2.9 million residents in the special municipalities and swamp 2,120km2 of land, it said.
The affected building areas would be about the size of 500 Taipei Arenas, it added.
Simulations showed that the Presidential Office Building, Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport), Taipei Railway Station and the Taipei Children’s Amusement Park would be flooded, while Taichung’s Gaomei Wetlands and Mitsui Outlet in the Port of Taichung would bear the brunt of the flooding damage, the report said.
Tainan would see the worst damage, with floodwater submerging historic sites such as Fort Zealandia and the Sicao Fortress, it said.
Tourist attractions in Kaohsiung such as the Pier-2 Art Center, 85 Sky Tower and Kaohsiung Formosa Boulevard MRT Station would also be flooded, it said.
Mayors of the six municipalities should conduct comprehensive assessments on the climate risks that their cities could face, “such as identifying transportation hubs, historic sites and infrastructure that are most susceptible to climate change and planning city development accordingly,” the report said.
They should set carbon-cutting goals and ways to achieve them, including medium and long-term goals to develop renewable energy and a timeline to retire gasoline-powered motor vehicles, it added.
Additional reporting by staff writer
Taiwan has arranged for about 8 million barrels of crude oil, or about one-third of its monthly needs, to be shipped from the Red Sea this month to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and ease domestic supply pressures, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said yesterday. The state-run oil company has worked with Middle Eastern suppliers to secure routes other than the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas typically passes, CPC chairman Fang Jeng-zen (方振仁) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei. Suppliers in Saudi Arabia have indicated they
A global survey showed that 60 percent of Taiwanese had attained higher education, second only to Canada, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan easily surpassed the global average of 43 percent and ranked ahead of major economies, including Japan, South Korea and the US, data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for 2024 showed. Taiwan has a high literacy rate, data released by the ministry showed. As of the end of last year, Taiwan had 20.617 million people aged 15 or older, accounting for 88.5 percent of the total population, with a literacy rate of 99.4 percent, the data
CCP ‘PAWN’? Beijing could use the KMT chairwoman’s visit to signal to the world that many people in Taiwan support the ‘one China’ principle, an academic said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday arrived in China for a “peace” mission and potential meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), while a Taiwanese minister detailed the number of Chinese warships currently deployed around the nation. Cheng is visiting at a time of increased Chinese military pressure on Taiwan, as the opposition-dominated Legislative Yuan stalls a government plan for US$40 billion in extra defense spending. Speaking to reporters before going to the airport, Cheng said she was going on a “historic journey for peace,” but added that some people felt uneasy about her trip. “If you truly love Taiwan,
NEW LOW: The council in 2024 based predictions on a pessimistic estimate for the nation’s total fertility rate of 0.84, but last year that rate was 0.69, 17 percent lower An expected National Development Council (NDC) report expects the nation’s population to drop below 12 million by 2065, with the old-age dependency ratio to top 100 percent sooner than 2070, sources said yesterday. The council is slated to release its latest population projections in August, using an ultra-low fertility model, the sources said. The previous report projected that Taiwan’s population would fall to 14.37 million by 2070, but based on a new estimate of the total fertility rate (TFR) — the average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime — the population is expected to reach 12 million by
RSS