The Executive Yuan plans to re-evaluate Taiwan’s carbon emissions goal by the end of next year, in line with the Glasgow Climate Pact, Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) Minister Chang Tzi-chin (張子敬) said yesterday.
Under the Glasgow Climate Pact — an agreement reached at this year’s UN Climate Change Conference (COP26), which concluded earlier this month — countries should “revisit and strengthen” their targets for 2030 to align with the temperature goal set in the 2015 Paris Agreement.
The goal set by the Paris Agreement would limit global warming to less than 2°C, preferably to 1.5°C, compared with pre-industrial levels.
Chang yesterday said at a legislative hearing that in keeping with the pact, the Executive Yuan would re-evaluate Taiwan’s carbon emission goals for 2030 by the end of next year.
Taiwan’s official emissions reduction target is stated in the Greenhouse Gas Reduction and Management Act (溫室氣體減量及管理法), passed in 2015, which calls for an emissions reduction of at least 50 percent of 2005’s levels by 2050.
The EPA states on its Web site that it aims to reduce carbon emission levels to 20 percent below those of 2005 by 2030, and that carbon emissions last year decreased by 2 percent against 2005 levels.
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in April said that Taiwan was making “relevant preparations” to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, in line with the goals of the international community.
Chang also said yesterday that a climate action act that the EPA is drafting is to include rules on carbon pricing, with the revenue being invested in measures to decrease emissions.
Beijing could eventually see a full amphibious invasion of Taiwan as the only "prudent" way to bring about unification, the US Department of Defense said in a newly released annual report to Congress. The Pentagon's "Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China 2025," was in many ways similar to last year’s report but reorganized the analysis of the options China has to take over Taiwan. Generally, according to the report, Chinese leaders view the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) capabilities for a Taiwan campaign as improving, but they remain uncertain about its readiness to successfully seize
Taiwan is getting a day off on Christmas for the first time in 25 years. The change comes after opposition parties passed a law earlier this year to add or restore five public holidays, including Constitution Day, which falls on today, Dec. 25. The day marks the 1947 adoption of the constitution of the Republic of China, as the government in Taipei is formally known. Back then the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) governed China from Nanjing. When the KMT, now an opposition party in Taiwan, passed the legislation on holidays, it said that they would help “commemorate the history of national development.” That
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Snow fell on Yushan (Jade Mountain, 玉山) yesterday morning as a continental cold air mass sent temperatures below freezing on Taiwan’s tallest peak, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Snowflakes were seen on Yushan’s north peak from 6:28am to 6:38am, but they did not fully cover the ground and no accumulation was recorded, the CWA said. As of 7:42am, the lowest temperature recorded across Taiwan was minus-5.5°C at Yushan’s Fengkou observatory and minus-4.7°C at the Yushan observatory, CWA data showed. On Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County, a low of 1.3°C was recorded at 6:39pm, when ice pellets fell at Songsyue Lodge (松雪樓), a
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