President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said yesterday that his administration would keep working to reduce the nation’s carbon dioxide emissions to help protect the environment.
Ma said Taiwan was ranked the world’s 13th-largest producer of carbon dioxide by the international science journal Nature, up from 22nd place in 2006, indicating the urgency with which Taiwan needed to take action.
Ma was speaking at a conference on sustainable development of public infrastructure held by the Public Construction Commission.
He said Taiwan should not avoid the problem just because the nation was not a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol.
Taiwan aims to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to the level they ware at in the year 2000 by 2020, and to half the 2000 level by 2050, he said.
“These are very ambitious goals that will be very difficult to achieve. This requires a lot of perseverance and the participation of all sectors and the public,” Ma said.
He said that since his inauguration in May, he has been promoting various measures aimed at conserving energy and reducing carbon dioxide emissions, such as turning down air conditioners and wearing lightweight clothes to the office.
While his critics have said that all these steps are far less effective than closing down a single power plant, Ma said the measures would raise public awareness of environmental protection and energy conservation.
A tropical depression east of the Philippines became a tropical storm early yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, less than a week after a typhoon barreled across the nation. The agency issued an advisory at 3:30am stating that the 22nd tropical storm, named Yinxing, of the Pacific typhoon season formed at 2am. As of 8am, the storm was 1,730km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point, with a 100km radius. It was moving west-northwest at 32kph, with maximum sustained winds of 83kph and gusts of up to 108kph. Based on its current path, the storm is not expected to hit Taiwan, CWA
Residents have called on the Taipei City Government to reconsider its plan to demolish a four-decades-old pedestrian overpass near Daan Forest Park. The 42-year-old concrete and steel structure that serves as an elevated walkway over the intersection of Heping and Xinsheng roads is to be closed on Tuesday in preparation for demolition slated for completion by the end of the month. However, in recent days some local residents have been protesting the planned destruction of the intersection overpass that is rendered more poetically as “sky bridge” in Chinese. “This bridge carries the community’s collective memory,” said a man surnamed Chuang
A tropical depression east of the Philippines became a tropical storm earlier today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The 22nd tropical storm, named Yinxing, in this year's Pacific typhoon season formed at 2am, the CWA said. As of 8am, the storm was 1,730km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) with a 100km radius, it said. It was moving west-northwest at 32kph, with maximum sustained winds of 83kph and gusts of up to 108kph. Based on its current path, the storm is not expected to hit Taiwan, CWA meteorologist Huang En-hung (黃恩宏) said. However, a more accurate forecast would be made on Wednesday, when Yinxing is
NEW DESTINATIONS: Marketing campaigns to attract foreign travelers have to change from the usual promotions about Alishan and Taroko Gorge, the transport minister said The number of international tourists visiting Taiwan is estimated to top 8 million by the end of this year, Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shi-kai (陳世凱) said yesterday, adding that the ministry has not changed its goal of attracting 10 million foreign travelers this year. Chen made the remarks at a meeting of the legislature’s Transportation Committee to brief lawmakers about the ministry’s plan to boost foreign visitor arrivals. Last month, Chen told the committee that the nation might attract only 7.5 million tourists from overseas this year and that when the ministry sets next year’s goal, it would not include