Premier Lai Ching-te held a press conference today to unveil a new air pollution control action plan that aims to halve the number of air quality red alert days by 2019. Drafted by the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA), the plan will consolidate air quality improvement efforts across all government agencies.
In April this year, former Premier Lin Chuan approved a government-wide Clean Air Action strategy that has shown early results in air pollution reduction, Premier Lai said. In more recent months, however, experts, civic groups and the general public have been leaning on the government to take further action on air pollution in a more effective manner. The Executive Yuan responded by presenting today's action plan, in addition to passing draft amendments to the Air Pollution Control Act last week and consulting with lawmakers and local governments for feedback.
Air pollution is not a problem that the EPA or local governments can tackle on their own but requires coordination with multiple agencies including the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Council of Agriculture, Premier Lai continued. He instructed central agencies to work with local officials on setting goals for reduction of air quality red alerts, and requested that Taichung City, Yunlin County, Chiayi County, Chiayi City, Miaoli County, Changhua County and Nantou County form strategies specific to stationary and mobile sources of pollution within their jurisdictions.
According to the EPA, the air pollution control action plan lays out several indicator-based policy targets: cut in half the number of air quality red alert days by 2019, replace all public vehicles with electric-powered ones by 2030, and require all scooters and cars to go electric by 2035 and 2040, respectively.
The action plan also outlines specific control and prevention measures to address larger sources of particulate matter emissions, the EPA said. State-owned enterprises will be held to super-low emission standards that are the most stringent in the world, vehicles emitting thick smoke will be banned from all roads, and stricter controls will be placed on cooking fumes from restaurants as well as fugitive dust from roads, construction sites and riverbanks.
These measures will be achieved through administrative action, including changing laws to impose stricter standards or heavier penalties and widening the scope of penalties on polluters. Preferential loans will also be provided to encourage businesses to replace aging, high-polluting vehicles and trucks. The goal, starting 2018, is to retire 10,000 public buses in favor of electric vehicles, while replacing 80,000 diesel-powered trucks manufactured in or before June 1999 with trucks that comply with the newest environmental emission standards, the EPA said.