UN FORUM:Minister Wei Kuo-yen said that despite Taiwan being a major emitter of carbon dioxide, the nation is missing from a UN map of nations and reduction targets

Taipei Times
Date:  Dec 09, 2015
By: Staff writer, with CNA

Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) Minister Wei Kuo-yen (魏國彥) urged the UN to be inclusive of all political entities in the fight against climate change and pursuit of carbon reduction.

Speaking on Monday at a forum on the sidelines of the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties (COP21) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Wei said Taiwan’s exclusion from the meeting as a political entity needed to change.

Taiwan has taken measures to reduce carbon emissions, including passing the Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction and Management Act (溫室氣體減量及管理法) and putting forward Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC), but the nation remains ostracized, he said.

“Obviously, Taiwan has disappeared from the INDC map” published on the UNFCCC Web site, Wei said, referring to public commitments on the reductions in emissions each nation is willing to make by 2030.

“With such intentional blindness in the international community, it is ironic that one cannot see the real existence of Taiwan in the UN’s bright meeting rooms,” Wei said.     [FULL  STORY]