President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday called on a youth volunteer team to help inform the public about the importance of conserving energy.
Praising the National Youth Commission’s Youth Volunteer Service for Regional Peace during the team’s anniversary celebration in Kaohsiung County, Ma urged the volunteers to maximize the impact of their activities by stressing the importance of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to those they help.
He also asked the team, which has grown to 450,000 members this year from 109,000 last year, to respond to global efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions at a time when the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is being held in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Ma claimed that since he assumed office, Taiwan had saved about 6 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity, equal to the total energy consumed in Tainan City and County over 16 months and representing a reduction of 3.84 million tons of carbon emissions.
However, the public must work together to conserve energy and cut carbon emissions even more, Ma said, because while Taiwan’s 23 million people account for only 0.0034 percent of the world’s population, they produce around 1 percent of the world’s global greenhouse gas emissions, ranking 18th in per capita emissions.
The president said that since he took office, the Presidential Office has worked to conserve electricity, gasoline, water and paper, and has cut expenditures on these items by 10 percent to 20 percent, saving more than NT$7 million (US$217,000) annually.
The president said that water conservation is particularly important because shortages loom in the south. At present, the Zengwun Reservoir’s (曾文水庫) water supply is at about 39 percent of capacity, while Nanhua (南化水庫) and Wushantou reservoirs (烏山頭水庫) are at about 50 percent, Ma said.
The volunteer group was modeled after the US Peace Corps, which was created in 1961 to help the Third World economically but also to spread democracy, the president said.
Volunteers sometimes have life-changing experiences, he said.
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