To strengthen climate change adaptation and enhance resilience, the Environmental Protection Bureau, Yunlin County held the “Climate Change Adaptation and Carbon Footprint Verification and Reduction Forum” on May 12th, 2023, at the Jan Fu Sun International Conference Hall. Experts, scholars, and representatives from various industries, government agencies, and academia were invited to participate in the forum. The aim was to gather diverse opinions and technical recommendations for resource integration, enabling different departments and units to better understand how to adapt and formulate carbon footprint verification and reduction strategies. The forum aimed to promote public-private cooperation and achieve the best adaptation methods for climate change.
Today(11th), Yunlin County Government also signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Formosa Plastics Group to jointly establish a team for carbon reduction, energy conservation, and water conservation. They will collaborate to provide guidance and assistance to local industries in planning and implementing various energy-saving and carbon reduction strategies. Additionally, various departments of Yunlin County are actively developing the “Second Phase Greenhouse Gas Control Implementation Plan,” which includes six sectors (energy, manufacturing, residential/commercial, transportation, agriculture, and environment), 31 promotion strategies, and 67 specific actions. It is estimated that these strategies and actions will reduce carbon emissions by approximately 1.8 million metric tons of CO2e. Through continuous promotion and public-private cooperation, they aim to implement energy-saving and carbon reduction measures and gradually move towards their targets.
Qiao-wei Zhang, the Director of the Environmental Protection Bureau, stated that the first step towards achieving net-zero emissions is to assess their own carbon emissions. By understanding the sources and intensity of their carbon emissions, they can then develop various strategies and measures for carbon reduction and carbon sinks. They will gradually work towards achieving net-zero emissions as a whole. Therefore, on this day (11th), they invited experts, scholars, and public-private entities in the field of climate change to share and discuss related topics, in order to implement carbon emissions inspections and practical actions for carbon reduction, and ultimately to achieve the goal of net-zero emissions.
County Magistrate Li-shan Chang mentioned that the past economic development model has been mainly linear, with resources being extracted, manufactured, produced, transported, used, and then disposed of, resulting in resource waste and environmental hazards. In order to mitigate problems related to global warming, resource depletion, extreme weather, and water scarcity, Yunlin County actively promotes the practices of Waste-to-Energy (WtE) and Waste-to-Resource (WtR) for various waste, emphasizing the urgency of transitioning to a “circular economy.” Furthermore, in order to strengthen climate change adaptation and enhance resilience, they hope to implement various carbon reduction measures through concrete actions, aiming to transform Yunlin County into a low-carbon sustainable home, and achieve net-zero emissions, thereby promoting environmental sustainability.
