The City of Taipei (“Taipei”) is located in the center of Taipei Basin in northern Taiwan. It is divided into 12 administrative districts, and covers an area of 271.77 square kilometers (27,177 hectares) or 0.75% of Taiwan’s land area. With 2.64 million (12% of Taiwan’s population as of January of 2003) residents and a population density of close to 10 thousand people per square kilometer, Taipei is one of the most crowded cities in the world.

To the southeast of Taipei lies the Sungshan Hill and Chingshui Ravine, which form a natural protective barrier of lush woods. The Dakekan and Shintien rivers are located to the southwest, while the Keelung River runs to the northeast. The three rivers converge at the Tanshui River and flow into the Taiwan Strait.

Since the retrocession of Taiwan from Japan in 1945, the economy of Taipei has been progressing at a fairly rapid rate. With only 20% of Taiwan’s registered businesses yet generate 37% of the island’s economic outputs, Taipei is truly the economic center of Taiwan. Most of the businesses in Taipei are in the service sector which employs over 80% of workers, followed by manufacturing sector (19% workers), while less than 0.5% of the workers work in the agriculture/fishing sector.

The industries in Taipei are mostly of the urban, light and technology-intensive type. As of the end of 2002, 2,076 manufacturing plants are registered in Taipei, mostly in categories of electronics/electrical equipment manufacturing and servicing businesses. The registered plant number shows a slight decrease from the year before, yet the plants’ total registered capital (671 billion New Taiwan dollars) shows an increase, indicating the manufacturing sector in the city is still vibrant. As the political, economical and cultural centre of Taiwan which faces the global trend of regional economical integration, Taipei strives to strengthen its functional role as the financial, media and telecommunication centre, based on its existing base of service sector and under the guidance of government’s Asia-Pacific operation centre policy, in order to sustain the city’s future economic development.

There are two major public transportation systems in Taipei, the bus system and the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) system. Due to the establishment of bus-only lanes in recent years, the average cruising speed of city buses has increased significantly and so is the bus ridership. The long-existing bus system operates on 276 routes and has a daily ridership of 1.84 million (as of March 2003). The MRT system is still a nascent transportation system to Taipei citizens; it currently has a daily ridership of close to 90 thousand. Taipei is also planning to build several looped bike routes in many of the city’s river side parks, to advance the concept of green transportation and eco-city.

In the next four years, Taipei will use “Digital City, Action Taipei” as the theme for information technology policy planning, and the infrastructure created by implementing the first stage of “Cyber City” plan, to further implement the plan’s second stage measures, in order to meet the challenge of global urban information technology development. The second-stage plan will cover the following six areas: information technology infrastructure, e-government, e-business, e-life, urban information exchange, and information technology education.

As part of the global community, Taipei will endeavor to participate in the global efforts to mitigate the effects of climate change. The focus of the city’s implementation measures would include: plan and implement measures for greenhouse gas emission reductions; participate in international climate change conferences and organizations; exchange experiences on emission reduction projects with other cities; and provide information on the city’s current mitigation efforts and future plans.  In order to meet the city’s goal of fulfilling its responsibilities as a member of the “global village” on climate change issue, the following tasks are proposed:

1. Collect and analyze information related to global warming researches, international conventions/treaties, and domestic climate change policies, in order to develop and propose strategies for mitigating global warming effects;

2. Conduct inventory of greenhouse gas emission sources and estimated emissions, in order to establish the city’s baseline emission database;

3. Collect, evaluate and recommend greenhouse gas emission mitigating measures suitable for use in Taipei, including:

(1) Promote energy efficient measures, such as lighting improvement in the commercial/residential sector, energy efficient building and Energy Star program;

(2) Promote energy efficiency measures in the transportation sector, such as improve fuel efficiency, adopt cleaner fuel, improve transportation management and strengthen mass transit system;

(3) Propose emission control measures for incinerators, airport and stationary emission sources;

(4) Promote further greening of the city, in order to increase carbon dioxide adsorption by plants;

(5) Reduce use of CFCs, in conformance with the requirements of the Montreal Protocol.

4. Organize education and promotional activities geared toward greenhouse gas emissions, in order to promote citizens’ awareness of greenhouse effects and climate change;

5. Collect information on greenhouse gas emission reduction measures adopted by similar metropolitans in Taiwan and worldwide, and provide comprehensive implementation strategies matching the city’s share in national emission reduction strategy.  

Source:

1.City of Taipei website: http://www.taipei.gov.tw/

2.http://ezgo.taipei-elife.net/homepage/english/eng_introduction.htm.