Environmental groups yesterday criticized the government for spending more subsidies on gasoline-powered scooters than on electric ones, questioning its resolve to combat air pollution and promote sustainability.
The groups made the remarks in response to the legislature’s Social Welfare and Environmental Hygiene Committee yesterday reviewing the budget proposal for the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA), saying that lawmakers should urge the agency to make better use of its air pollution control fund.
A total of NT$1.1 billion (US$38.25 million) has been spent on subsidizing the purchases of 136,000 gasoline-powered scooters this year, including NT$600 million from the EPA, Taiwan Environment and Planning Association chairman Chao Chia-wei (趙家緯) told a news conference in Taipei.
Photo: Peter Lo, Taipei Times
By comparison, only NT$320 million was spent on subsidies for 24,000 electric scooters, with the funds partly coming from the Industrial Development Bureau, he said.
Even the most efficient gasoline-fueled scooters produce far more pollutants than electric ones, he said.
Citing UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Chao said that “the time of fossil-fuel subsidies is over.”
Chao urged the EPA to follow the global carbon reduction trend and improve its fund allocation.
Former EPA deputy minister Thomas Chan (詹順貴) said that the Cabinet under Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) has reduced its efforts to combat air pollution.
The EPA’s air pollution control fund, with an annual budget of NT$7 billion to NT$8 billion, should stop subsidizing vehicles that cause air pollution, he said.
While the Cabinet in 2018 said that it aims to ban the sale of gasoline-powered scooters by 2035 and gasoline-powered vehicles by 2040, the goals were dropped after Su assumed office, Chan said.
Citizen of the Earth, Taiwan deputy executive director Tsai Chung-yueh (蔡中岳) said that the Executive Yuan last year announced sustainability goals, including raising the market share of newly sold scooters powered by alternative energy sources to 35 percent by 2030.
The government should stick to those goals, Tsai said, adding that as of September, the market share of such scooters was only 10 percent.
Additional reporting by CNA
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods