Aiming to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) will sign formal memorandums of understanding (MOUs) with associations of industries making semiconductors and thin-film transistor liquid-crystal displays (TFT-LCD) at the end of this year to ensure that this country will shoulder its responsibilities for global sustainable development.
Since the 1980s, scientific evidence has shown the correlation between global warming and emission of certain gases. Scientists agree that the concentration of "greenhouse gases" in the atmosphere is increasing and that the world is getting warmer.
Six greenhouse gases are covered under the Kyoto Protocol, the treaty set by the UN to set quantified targets for reducing the emission of greenhouse gases by industrialized countries, and to establish policies and measures according to the specific circumstances of the countries involved.
Although Taiwan is not a member of the UN, EPA officials said that the country would never try to dodge its responsibilities to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.
In addition to carbon dioxide, Taiwan needs to curb its emissions of perfluorocarbons (PFCs) produced by the production of semiconductors and TFT-LCDs, the officials said. Taiwanese companies now share more than 30 percent of the global market in these industries.
"We need to be well-prepared. If not, domestic firms in these industries might fail to meet environmental demands from the international community," Deputy EPA Administrator Tsay Ting-kuei (
According to Leu Horng-guang (
For the semiconductor industry, a global voluntary target is to bring the average emission levels of PFCs in 1997 to 1998 down by 10 percent by 2010. The Taiwan Semiconductor Industry Association is committed to that goal.
The Taiwan TFT-LCD Association has reached a consensus with its counterparts in Japan and South Korea to reduce the aggregate absolute emissions of PFCs from the TFT-LCD fabrication facilities to less than 0.82 MMTCE (million tonnes of carbon equivalent) by the year 2010.
"The EPA will help the two associations to reach global goals aiming to reduce the emission of PFCs by offering up-to-date information, auditing local greenhouse gas emissions and seeking possible substitutes," Leu said.
Inspired by a recently-released film The Day After Tomorrow, Leu said that the EPA had asked its research associates to produce a short film showing how the Taipei metropolitian area would be effected by such massive flooding.
The scenario will be based on the scientific assumption that concentration of carbon dioxide of the planet will double its 1990 level.
The short film will be distributed to schools for environmental education at the end of this year.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
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 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
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
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