A climate specialist has questioned the Ministry of Environment's plan to launch a "cool map" next month, saying that coping with rising city temperatures should highlight vegetation instead of air-conditioning.
The ministry's planned "cool map" would help people locate air-conditioned spaces in cities, but National Cheng Kung University professor Lin Tzu-ping (林子平) said that it should instead identify comfortable outdoors areas to alleviate the summer heat.
Photo: Tsai Shu-yuan, Taipei Times
Air-conditioning can actually reduce people's resilience to heat, and therefore any anti-heat strategy should prioritize public areas and more vegetation, said Lin, who heads the university's Building and Climate Lab.
The most effective city cooling strategies usually incorporate a combination of plants, water and wind, Lin said, suggesting that Taiwan create more interconnected shaded areas with ventilation and water features for people to cool down.
In Singapore, for example, there are shaded areas within 400m of the subway stations, which protect people from the heat when they are outside, he said.
On the question of Taiwan's future urban cooling strategies, Lin said that greater cross-agency collaboration would be needed, with the Ministry of the Interior, for example, overseeing building policies, while local government agencies manage parks.
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