Six automobile manufacturers yesterday signed an agreement with the Environmental Protection Administration to implement a voluntarily reduction of carbon dioxide emissions of between 10 percent and 15 percent by 2015.
Environmental Protection Administration Minister Stephen Shen (沈世宏) said the agreement would require the six manufacturers — BMW, Ford, Honda Taiwan, China Motor Corp, Hyundai and Mercedes-Benz — to use the average amount of CO2 emitted by the small passenger cars they sold last year as the base from which to set the goal of reducing CO2 emissions by between 10 percent and 15 percent by 2015.
Meanwhile, the manufacturers will be required to provide detailed plans on how their products could help reduce CO2 emissions, as well as the measures they intend to utilize to promote the sale of low-emission vehicles.
In addition, they will be asked to submit a specific, stage-by-stage timeline to the environmental agency on how they plan to achieve their goals.
Aside from the six car companies, the agency said it was also in negotiations with Kuorui Motors, Yulong Motors and Hotai Motor Co to sign a similar agreement.
Hu Ming-hui (胡明輝), a section chief at the agency’s Department of Air Quality and Noise Control, said the nation was the first country in Asia to adopt a policy of voluntary emission-reductions.
Similar policies have been implemented in the EU, Australia and Canada.
Hu said the government would mandate reductions in CO2 emissions from 2015 once a draft act on greenhouse gas emissions reduction is passed by the legislature.
The country is the world’s 24th largest emitter of CO2, representing 0.94 percent of the global total.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY STAFF WRITER
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A tropical depression east of the Philippines became a tropical storm earlier today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The 22nd tropical storm, named Yinxing, in this year's Pacific typhoon season formed at 2am, the CWA said. As of 8am, the storm was 1,730km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) with a 100km radius, it said. It was moving west-northwest at 32kph, with maximum sustained winds of 83kph and gusts of up to 108kph. Based on its current path, the storm is not expected to hit Taiwan, CWA meteorologist Huang En-hung (黃恩宏) said. However, a more accurate forecast would be made on Wednesday, when Yinxing is
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