Kaohsiung, Sept. 17 (CNA) Gro Harlem Brundtland, former prime minister of Norway and a winner of the Tang Prize, an international academic award established by Taiwanese entrepreneur Samuel Yin in 2012, called Wednesday for stepping up the pace of promoting sustainable development.
Brundtland said the world's environment is being destroyed and she expressed hope that sustainable development can be accelerated.
Speaking during a forum at Kaohsiung's National Sun Yat-sen University as part of a week of lectures and other activities in celebration of the first Tang Prize, she said the world is facing the challenge of transforming itself into a green economy.
But she pointed out the problem of tax systems, saying that the richest should be more heavily taxed and that subsidies for chemical fuels should be scrapped.
She said Taiwan has a big problem of low laxation and urged the implementation of a more reasonable tax system.
She also addressed the issue of paternal leave, recalling that she pushed for both maternity leave and paternal leave in her own country, where the law now stipulates that the father has the right to take leave when his children are born.
The implementation of such reforms need vision and determination, she added.
The Tang Prize is aimed at being an Asian supplement to the Nobel Prize. It is awarded in four categories -- sustainable development, biopharmaceutical science, sinology and rule of law.
Brundtland is the winner in the category of sustainable development.
(By Chen Cho-fu and Lilian Wu)ENDITEM/J
