Despite the changes brought about by COVID-19, the world is facing many other challenges such as climate change, wealth gap, and inflation. The United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction’s definition of a resilient city primarily focused on risk management, response, and recovery in the face of different types of disasters. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) later expanded the definition of a resilient city into four areas that drive resilience: sustainable economic development, protection of environmental resources and biodiversity, empowering social networks, and government governance.
Sustainable economic growth is ensured by providing employment, training, and education opportunities and strengthening investment attraction. The protection of environmental resources and biodiversity of the ecosystem must go hand in hand with providing resources and infrastructure that meet basic needs. An empowering social network encourages civic participation and ensures cohesiveness and inclusiveness in a society where everyone can live in safety. Transparent and open government governance can foster public-private partnerships and combine city and state governance while drawing governance experience from other countries.
Resilience means restorative powers and takes diverse forms. The forum focuses on the four aspects of sustainable economy, green lifestyle, good governance, and international cooperation. I would like to share with you the 13 challenges that Taoyuan has to address in its transition towards a resilient city.
The first is water management. Taiwan has been promoting the forward-looking water management project in order to ensure the full utilization of water resources and the creation of an environment for water management and water conservation. In Taoyuan, we have also adopted a water management approach that focuses on ecological restoration. The city’s water quality control project and water resource protection project make sure that industrial, household, and agricultural demands for water can be met while preserving the cultural characteristics of Taoyuan’s reservoir, rivers, and ponds. We have also established flood-resistant community organizations that help elevate local communities’ disaster preparedness, mitigation, and recovery capabilities.
Next is our sponge city program. We turn irrigation ponds into detention ponds. Before the typhoon season, pond water is released to store and discharge stormwater so as to prevent the overflowing of water into the city. Under the Taoyuan Eco-City Afforestation Project, we have established green indicators for the city and undertaken comprehensive afforestation plans according to the characteristics and specific topography of different districts and local communities. The aim is to build a green city surrounded by mountains and water. With nearly 12,000 factories in the city, Taoyuan has the highest number of factories in the country; however, the city’s overall green indicators have greatly improved thanks to these projects.
The next challenge is carbon reduction from transportation. Taoyuan is the first in Taiwan to promote the wide use of electric scooters. We are the first city to implement the E-scooter-sharing scheme of GoShare. Currently, there are two E-scooter-sharing schemes available to our citizens (the other one being iRent), and a total of 2,200 E-scooters are provided under both schemes. In addition, the city has installed around 200 rental stations and offers almost 10,000 public bikes under the public bike-sharing system, Ubike. Further, more than 200,000 highly-polluting two-stroke scooters used to roam the streets of Taoyuan. After phasing out 90% of these scooters, the air pollution caused by scooters has significantly reduced in the city. At the same time, more than 4,000 old diesel trucks have been phased out as well. Taoyuan’s metro system is currently under development or expansion, so that carbon emissions could be minimized from public transportation.
Our roadmap for carbon reduction such as encouraging large factories to adopt emission reduction strategies aims to reduce greenhouse gases and PM2.5 emissions. Since I took office seven years ago, the reduction rate has reached 17%. In addition, Taoyuan’s Datan Power Plant, which is Taiwan’s largest gas-fired power plant, is required by the city government to reduce its emissions. Its six generating units are now using secondary combustion facilities to reduce emissions by up to 50%. Many of the industrial boilers in Taoyuan run on heavy oil or coal. The city has been promoting the transition towards the use of natural gas for industrial boilers. With almost 900 boilers replaced in the past seven years, the city has seen a significant drop in carbon emissions.
The next challenge is green energy transition. The Green Energy Promotion Office is established in 2018 and responsible for the promotion of related policies in Taoyuan. The generation capacity of wind energy in the city has reached 100 MW. Solar power generation has also grown by 80 times over the past seven years, which is the highest in northern Taiwan. Taoyuan has initiated the project for green energy demonstration communities, which aims to provide backup electricity generated from wind and solar energy for 72 hours in the event of a power outage. The project will equip small communities in rural areas with the ability to cope with sudden disasters of any kind.
Energy saving is also high on the city’s agenda. Many energy-saving projects are now underway to help Taoyuan’s industrial transformation towards low water consumption, low power consumption, and low pollution. For instance, Taoyuan initiated the country’s first smart street light program to replace 160,000 street lights with LED ones, reducing power consumption by 40%. At the same time, Taoyuan city is providing subsidies for energy-saving efforts made by government agencies, schools, local communities, the service industry, and so on. As we encourage the replacement of old air-conditioning systems, lighting systems, water coolers, and refrigerators, we hope to mobilize the citizens to lower their energy consumption.
We are making progress in building a circular economy, especially in the area of water, power, and infrastructure projects. Our project that encourages the reuse of effluent targets a total of seven water resource centers. These water resource centers can provide roughly 80,000 tons of recycled water on a daily basis. The establishment of our first reclaimed water plant aims to motivate the petrochemical sector, circuit board companies, and memory manufacturers to switch to the use of reclaimed water. In the pursuit of the city’s goal of zero wastes and low pollution by increasing the efficiency of autonomous waste treatment, Taoyuan City established Taiwan’s first biomass energy center in Guanyin District. By turning wastes into sources of renewable energy, the center is expected to generate 200 million kilowatt-hours of electricity, which can power roughly 60,000 households. After the center goes into operation, the city will be able to facilitate autonomous treatment of kitchen wastes while managing its waste disposal issues more effectively. Infrastructure projects in Taoyuan City are encouraged to use recycled aggregates. Wastes generated in the city are transformed into high-strength and highly durable aggregates for road pavement, pipe repair, and parking lot projects.
In the face of the land conservation challenge, Taiwan has implemented the Spatial Planning Act, in which local governments are authorized to draw up spatial plans for the establishment of functional zones. Taoyuan City has completed the initial functional zoning, which is expected to be implemented by 2025.
Through spatial zoning, we will be able to help the city establish the structure for sustainable development and facilitate effective land management.
Due to its high level of industrial development, Taoyuan City once fell victim to soil contamination. As a result, the city rolled out a remediation plan. As high as 342 hectares of land are now fully recovered. The once-barren lands are now available for agricultural use.
In the area of public safety, Taoyuan has launched many smart management systems, such as the cloud management system for sewage and groundwater, the fire prevention and dispatch system, the inspection system for environmental pollution, the system for transportation network management for police stations. These systems will facilitate city governance with higher transparency and effectiveness.
Green manufacturing is crucial to Taoyuan as it is the hub of the ICT industry. 70% of Taiwan’s PCB manufacturers are located in Taoyuan. Setting an emission cap and the control over heavy metal emissions for all PCB manufacturers will align them with our goals of emission reduction and help meet environmental manufacturing standards.
The city government has also implemented policies centering around zero-emission, full recycling, and water usage reduction for the panel industry. In the case of AU Optronics Corporation, their water usage has gone down from 18,000 to 2,000 tons on a daily basis.
Low-carbon logistics is also a challenge that we face. Home to Taoyuan International Airport and adjacent to the Port of Taipei, Taoyuan has attracted many logistics operators to the city. Taoyuan City has been working with ICLEI－Local Governments for Sustainability headquartered in Bonn, Germany. After becoming the first chair city of ICLEI EcoLogistics Community in 2019, Taoyuan has been advocating the concept of low-carbon for logistics facilities, logistics fleets, logistics distribution, and logistics packaging in hopes of reducing air pollution and increasing the use of green energy by the logistics sector. One of the programs that we have been promoting is the use of green vehicles for the last mile of goods distribution to lower air pollution.
Taoyuan has been trying to improve volunteer participation. With more than 12,000 volunteers serving as members of neighborhood watch at local communities, one-third of the city is covered by community safety force. The police force is also working with volunteers to make our communities safer and increase the disaster response capabilities of communities.
Alongside the city’s river patrol team of 2,700 members that protect Taoyuan’s rivers free from pollution, a team of 37,000 environmental volunteers also goes into every corner of the city to help remove the garbage and keep the city clean.
The last challenge that I would like to highlight is coastal protection. Taoyuan has set up the Office of Coast Administration Construction, which is the first of its kind in Taiwan, and issued the White Paper on Coastal Ecology Protection in Taoyuan City. The city has 16 coastal patrol teams formed by 580 volunteers, five diving teams with 167 volunteer divers, and three environmental fleets that combine 95 boats and ships to help with the city’s coastal protection efforts, such as beach cleanup operations and marine pollution control. Going forward, the city will continue to promote marine and ecological education and protect our ocean by exercising better pollution control.
Lastly, civil participation is an indispensable part of establishing a resilient city that will usher participatory democracy into government governance. We believe that every citizen has the drive and capacity to participate in public affairs. In our projects that incorporate participatory democracy, we have seen many citizens taking part in public affairs, such as combating climate change, tackling disasters, reducing pollutions, increasing ecological protection, and enhancing community safety. With participatory democracy, we will help foster inclusiveness in our local communities and provide better care for senior citizens, women, and children. The power of citizens will help realize our vision of creating a participatory city.
The development of a resilient city has become a common language for inter-city exchanges. Taoyuan City Government has every confidence in realizing the vision of a resilient city. We are very honored to work with Taiwan-Asia Exchange Foundation led by Chairman Michael Hsiao to organize this forum. Through discussion and sharing of countries’ trends of sustainable development, we will be able to foster international and inter-city cooperation at all levels in all areas. As we expand each other’s perspectives and seek ideas to solve problems, we will be able to work together to usher new trends in the post-pandemic era! (Advertorial)
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