Unclear government policy is the biggest challenge for companies when developing plans to address challenges posed by climate change, a British Office Taipei survey showed on Wednesday.
More than 83 percent of 588 domestic enterprises surveyed said they believe that business would play an important role if Taiwan commits to reaching its goal of reducing carbon emissions by 50 percent of 2005 levels by 2050, the report showed.
More than 65 percent of the respondents said that unclear environmental policy from the government is the biggest challenge they face when considering and adopting plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, followed by the difficulty of acquiring alternative energy sources in Taiwan.
Although the Greenhouse Gas Reduction and Management Act (溫室氣體減量及管理法) went into effect in 2015, the Environmental Protection Administration has yet to establish carbon pricing mechanisms, the report said, citing company representatives.
Carbon pricing policies normally include carbon taxes and a cap-and-trade system, under which authorities distribute emission allowances to designated companies that can be traded among them.
The report also found that 68.2 percent of the companies surveyed said they do not have a plan to invest in alternative energy.
More than 80 percent of the firms said the high cost might prevent them from adopting alternative energy, the report said.
In addition, 61.3 percent of the companies surveyed said they believe that electricity supplied by alternative energy is less stable than traditional sources of energy, the report found.
The report was conducted to learn about Taiwanese enterprises’ attitude on adopting climate action initiatives and the results could provide a reference for the public and private sectors, the British Office Taipei said.
The survey was conducted from July 2 to Aug. 2 among companies in the manufacturing, finance and service industries, the office said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching