The Ministry of Education is aiming for zero growth in school energy consumption this year amid the nation's soaring greenhouse gas emissions, Minister of Education Tu Cheng-sheng (杜正勝) said yesterday on the eve of World Environment Day.
A UN holiday promoting awareness of environmental issues, World Environment Day is typically an occasion used by government officials to address the nation's alarming carbon dioxide emission levels. In a press conference yesterday, Tu expressed concern for what he said was the yearly growth in energy consumption by schools nationwide, leading to further emissions of greenhouse gases.
He warned against cranking up air conditioners and called on students to wear cool, light attire as the summer approaches.
PHOTO: WANG MIN-WEI, TAIPEI TIMES
"If that which can be saved or cut down on isn't being saved or isn't being cut down on, you're being wasteful," Tu said.
The ministry plans to distribute energy saving and consumption monitoring technologies to more schools, it announced in a statement yesterday. Senior high schools and vocational schools nationwide, it said, were subsidized last year and in 2005 to install such technologies, leading to a "2 percent to 3 percent" reduction in consumption.
But the focus yesterday wasn't totally on Taiwan. Tu saved many of his remarks for China, which he slammed as "backward" for relying chiefly on coal for its energy needs. China's economic rise, he said, has led to an explosion in energy consumption there and, with that, "a daily worsening of pollution."
Environmental experts here, however, panned the government for "irresponsibility in its rampant increase of carbon dioxide emissions," saying that the nation's modest geographic size yet relatively high level of development make emissions levels inexcusable.
Unleashing more than 2.17 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere annually, or nearly 1 percent of the global total, Taiwan churns out more greenhouse gases than all but 21 nations, according to the Environmental Protection Administration.
"It's pretty bad," said Linda Arrigo of the Green Party Taiwan, a political party dedicated to protecting the environment, referring to the country's carbon dioxide emissions.
"Taiwan has doubled its carbon dioxide emissions since 1990, the year of the Kyoto Protocol, which aims to spur nations to gradually decrease such production," she said.
By more than doubling its greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 to 2005, according to official statistics, Taiwan's energy policies run counter to the spirit of the protocol, Arrigo said.
"It's outrageous," she said.
Speaking to the Taipei Times on condition of anonymity yesterday, a senior foreign trade official familiar with environmental issues here agreed, saying that "a negative de-coupling" in which the country's carbon dioxide emissions soar while its GDP drops, begs to be inverted.
But that's unlikely to happen in the near future because of the projected growth in carbon dioxide emissions, Arrigo said.
Steel and petrochemical plants scheduled to go online in Yunlin County, Arrigo said, would add approximately another 20 percent to the nation's greenhouse gas emissions.
"It's nice that schools want to decrease their energy consumption and carbon dioxide emission levels," she said. "But that's just a tiny fraction of the problem."
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
RSS