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By Ian McConnell

Business Editor

The head of Taiwan’s COP26 delegation believes the island democracy’s main urban centres can learn from Glasgow and Edinburgh in the fight against climate-change, flagging the drive by Scotland’s two largest cities to be net zero by 2030.

Chih-Hsiu Shen, Deputy Minister in Taiwan’s Environmental Protection Administration, told The Herald in an interview in Glasgow yesterday: “When we first came to Scotland, we arrived in Edinburgh, then we came to Glasgow. We met a lot of people.”

Commenting on targets embraced by the two cities’ local authorities, Mr Shen added: “We know Edinburgh and Glasgow cities – they both aimed to achieve net zero by 2030, so in Scotland we have seen cities moving forward and this is something we can learn about.

“In Taiwan, we…have six main cities...Glasgow and Edinburgh – it is a great reference these cities. All our cities will be moving forward – in climate-change issues, central government and local government should work together.”

Mr Shen noted one of Taiwan’s six main cities, Taoyuan, which is home to the main airport of the island democracy of more than 23 million people, was participating in the COP26 delegation.

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The Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Act 2019 commits Scotland to net-zero emissions of all greenhouse gases by 2045.

The UK Government has pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across the economy to reach net zero by 2050.

Taiwan is not a member of the United Nations. It has non-government organisation (NGO) observer status at the COP26 UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow and is thus not able to participate with member states at the main official meetings.

Mr Shen hammered home his view that this inability to participate fully reduced Taiwan’s capacity to prepare for the climate-change emergency, and was also a negative factor from a global perspective.

In this context, he highlighted Taiwan’s status as a leading global manufacturer of semiconductor chips. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co is the world’s largest contract manufacturer of chips.

Mr Shen declared Taiwan had been “quarantined” from the main COP26 events.

He said: “Due to political factors, Taiwan could not participate in COP26 as a government name or observer. We are under the name of non-government organisations observer, so we cannot participate in official meetings. We are being quarantined, we are being separated by these meetings.”

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He added: “Taiwan is the most important supplier of the semiconductor [sectors]. If we cannot obtain information or important messages from the COP meetings, it is very unfair and it will lower our capacities to cope with the emergencies.”

Mr Shen highlighted drought and water shortages in Taiwan in the first half of the year. He flagged the importance of water and electricity to manufacturing in Taiwan, and thus the impact on the economy of drought. He also highlighted Taiwan’s vulnerability to climate change, as an island.

He underlined the important part being played by companies in Scotland and elsewhere in the UK in Taiwan’s development of offshore wind energy.

Ming-Chih Chuang, director in the planning division of the Bureau of Energy in Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs, said: “Most of the offshore windmill technologies – because the UK has been pioneering around the whole world, we have a lot to learn from them. In the future, our main goal is to build as a green energy hub in the Asia-Pacific...so we can export our expertise and technologies to the neighbouring countries in the Asia-Pacific regions.”

In the context of energy-efficient technologies, Mr Chuang flagged the strength of Taiwan’s LED (light-emitting diode) industry, declaring: “We have the systematic experience we can share with other countries.”

He highlighted rapid roll-out of LED street-lighting in Taiwan since 2009.

Mr Shen flagged the use of LED technology for lighting in the landmark Taipei 101 tower’s car-parking areas.

Brenda Hu, who heads policy and strategy planning at Taiwan’s Financial Supervisory Commission, highlighted the development of green finance in the island democracy. She flagged strong bank lending for green technologies. She also highlighted the development of green, sustainable, and social bonds, and flagged major progress in ESG (environmental, social and governance) reporting by companies.

President Tsai Ing-wen this week reaffirmed Taiwan’s target of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.

Mr Shen said: “In Taiwan, the year 2007 is the peak of our carbon emissions and now it has been reduced a lot.

“Some of the countries – they have yet to reach their peak. Their plan to net zeros are 2060 or 2070...All countries should act at the same pace to reduce carbon emissions.

“This (tackling climate change) is especially important to the lowland or island countries.”