This year's Environment Ministers Meeting ended yesterday with the signing of a declaration by Taiwan and seven Latin American countries agreeing to jointly devote themselves to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Taiwan will work closely with the other signatories to preserve forests, increase energy efficiency, seek alternative energy sources and monitor the environment.
"Today's the happiest day of my life," the Minister of the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) Chang Kow-lung (
Chang said Taiwan's cooperation with these countries had been following the market allocation model, or the MARKAL model, which is an analytical tool developed by the International Energy Agency (IEA) to help countries manage energy use.
Since each country now faced fresh challenges, such as global climate change, a new strategy needed to be delivered, he said.
"The declaration covers a broader scope of issues and at the same time provides concrete action plans," he said.
Costa Rican Environment Minister Roberto Dobles, who is also the chairman of the Central American Commission on Environment and Development (CCAD), said that the declaration had created new challenges as well as new opportunities and invited Taiwan to invest in major environmental projects.
"We believe that the environment will eventually benefit from our efforts," Dobles said.
According to the declaration, Taiwan will establish an office within eight months to make direct contacts with each of the signatories of the declaration, namely Costa Rica, Belize, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua.
The EPA will seek to cooperate with these countries on potentially viable environmental and energy projects. It will also incorporate initiatives from the nation's public and private sectors to execute such projects.
During the two-day meeting, the administration also held bilateral meetings with each signatory.
As a result, the EPA discussed the possibility of establishing an environmental engineering department at the National University of Belize.
It also exchanged views with other countries about several crucial issues, such as monitoring air and water pollution, genetic engineering and recycling.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS