TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Taipei City marked Earth Day Thursday (April 22) by setting 2050 as its target for net zero emissions.

The move symbolized the Taiwanese capital’s determination to shoulder its responsibility as a citizen of the global community and cut carbon emissions, Taipei City Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said.

Taipei will take the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for 2030 as its base to transform the city as it faces the threat of climate change. The use of recycled materials, electric vehicles, smart and zero-carbon buildings, and investment in innovative businesses will form part of the capital’s long-term emission reduction policies.

EU member countries on Tuesday next week are to hold their first forum in Taipei to pitch investment opportunities directly to Taiwanese companies, with the top EU envoy encouraging local businesses to play an important role in Europe’s post-pandemic economic development.

It is in the interest of Taiwanese companies to increase their presence in Europe, especially as global supply chains are being restructured due to the COVID-19 pandemic, European Economic and Trade Office (EETO) in Taiwan Director Filip Grzegorzewski said on Friday.

TAIPEI—Taiwan has won global praise for its response to the coronavirus pandemic. As the world closes borders and enforces quarantines to combat the outbreak, leaders are looking to Taipei for a model to emulate—and, increasingly, for help.

On March 19, Taiwan closed its borders to nonresidents amid a second wave of imported cases among travelers returning from abroad. The self-governing island now has 379 COVID-19 cases, a number that has remained relatively low due to a series of aggressive containment, quarantine, and monitoring measures that have limited local transmission of the coronavirus.

SparkLabs said it has invested US$40,000 in each of the eight startups that form the third cohort of its Taiwan accelerator program in exchange for up to 6% equity.

The startups are working on solutions in fields like telemedicine, commercial AI, and internet of things, among others, according to a statement.

At the beginning of the New Year in 2020 we were looking at the threat of war rising out of the rhetoric coming out of Washington and from Tehran. I had a flight planned to travel to Kuwait in January to give a keynote address as part of the Kuwait Public Policy Center’s Lecture Series at the General Secretariat of the Supreme Council for Planning & Development in Kuwait. See: https://lnkd.in/esEVzzn. As the tensions grew and missiles were fired that downed Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 on Jan. 8, I debated my flight to Kuwait, which neighbors Iran on the Persian Gulf. Ultimately, I made the trip via Cairo and spent an uneventful, but very enlightening, week in Kuwait. Upon my return we immediately had another crisis to deal with – whether or not the ICF Institute-organized ICF TOP7 event in Taoyuan, Taiwan would continue or not due to the outbreak of the novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China.

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Taipei, Taiwan has been declared one the most livable cities in 2018 by the BBC in a recent report based on an analysis by the Economist's Intelligence Unit.

According to the report, Taipei ranks as the 58th most livable city in the world, and is among the top five cities which have demonstrated continuous improvement in quality of life over the past 10 years.

A digital library for 3D models of landmark buildings has started a trial run, the Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Science and Technology announced yesterday.

The Taiwan Digital Asset Library, a collaborative project between the two ministries, aims to collect virtual models of cultural assets that can be used for audiovisual creation, Minister of Culture Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君) said.

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taiwan's notorious 'Digital Minister' of the Executive Yuan, Audrey Tang (唐鳳), held the first ever "vTaiwan Open Consultation & Participation Officers Training" in New York City June 11 and June 12.

Tang's lecture on digital governance at last year's Personal Democracy Forum (PDF) in New York City received a very warm welcome. The PDF organizers felt that Taiwan's experience in particular is worth learning from and spent over a year arranging the visit of Tang and seven other government officials.

SINGAPORE/ TAIPEI – Once touted as among the fabled "Asian Tigers", the Taiwan economy has fallen dramatically behind its counterparts including Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea.

But after being mired in the economic doldrums for decades, Taiwan – which is the home of hardware giants Acer, ASUS, Foxconn and HTC – could be better poised than its regional rivals to ride the technological wave, said experts, citing its private sector capabilities in artificial intelligence, Internet of Things (IoT), and autonomous vehicles for example.

The Netherlands Trade and Investment Office (NTIO) has for decades devoted itself to boosting bilateral ties between Taiwanese and Dutch institutions in various fields, from agriculture to renewable energy. NTIO Representative Guy Wittich discussed how the Netherlands is moving toward a circular economy and strengthening its relations with Taiwan in an interview with ‘Taipei Times’ staff reporter Kuo Chia-erh in Taipei on Jan. 17

Taipei Times (TT): How is the Netherlands turning circular economy from a nice idea into reality?