Mayor shares Taipei's environmental policies with global audience

Paris, June 23 (CNA) Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) on Monday highlighted Taipei's environmental governance policies, especially those on waste disposal and traffic, at a summit of world mayors focused on climate change.

The only mayor representing an Asian city at the "Summit of Mayors: From Paris to Belém: 10 Years of Global Action for Climate" held in Paris, Chiang talked first about Taiwan's "Keep Trash Off the Ground" program.

Chiang said the approach keeps streets clean and litter-free by limiting public garbage bins and instead having garbage trucks make scheduled rounds, allowing residents to bring out their trash at designated times for collection.

Taipei also collects a fee per garbage bag, requiring residents to use designated garbage bags that they have to pay for to get, while no such rules apply for recycled waste, Chiang said.

Because residents can save money by generating less garbage, the policy has reduced household garbage by 65 percent, while the proportion of recycled waste to total waste has risen from 2 percent to 66 percent, he said.

As for traffic, Chiang told the audience that the Taipei Metro has a daily ridership of 2 million people and is one of the most reliable metro systems in the world.

He also highlighted an incentive program he introduced as mayor for the city's YouBike rental system that offers the first 30 minutes of each ride for free, leading one in four residents to switch from driving or riding motorcycles to using YouBikes instead.

Chiang also outlined plans to transform the city's Beitou Shilin Technology Park into a net-zero demonstration zone, featuring low-carbon buildings, a wind corridor layout, and sustainable infrastructure.

With Nvidia Corp. planning to set up its Taiwan headquarters in the area, the initiative aims to showcase the potential for "green growth."

Speaking to a CNA reporter after his speech, Chiang said the forum provided a chance to promote Taipei and contribute its experiences on environmental governance to the world, calling it "very good city diplomacy."

Having visited Paris' Limited Traffic Zone, which prohibits "through traffic" and only allows journeys starting and ending in the zone, Chiang told CNA that it was worth studying.

The mayor's summit marks the 10-year anniversary of the Paris Agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change that was signed in 2015.