The project aims to assist Pingtung County consistently towards a low-carbon county. With guidance from the project team, townships and villages were able to participate in the Low Carbon and Sustainable Homeland Certification held by the Environmental Protection Administration, which was able to follow the central government's policies and leveled up the Low Carbon and Sustainable Homeland Certification simultaneously based on self-developments and self-goals.
The plan's implementation will include technical consulting, technical counseling, administrative coordination assistance, labor division between the county government bureaus, information integration and exchange, etc. The project team will complete the project with the contract's goals. The period of implementation for this project is from the 21st of February 2020 to the 20th of December 2020. The work of the Executive Summary of Results as follows:
1.Maintain the operation and the affairs related to Low Carbon and Sustainable Homeland
The conference and carbon reduction achievements in the first half and the whole year have been submitted on the EPA’s Low Carbon and Sustainable Homeland website on the 29th of June 2020 and the 30th of December 2020, respectively.
The list of 2020 functional technical advisory teams in the Southern District Living Circle was provided to Tainan City on the 13th of February and submitted to the Environmental Protection Bureau on the 27th of February. From the perspective of the resource cycle adaptation in Pingtung County, four committee members are in the technical review team. All four members serve as members of the rating review panel.
The second conference of the southern district living circle of low-carbon and sustainable homeland technical consultation and evaluation review was held on the 8th of September 2020. As contract requirements, the project cooperated with the Southern District Living Circle to attend a total of 8 meetings , including a Southern District Living Circle meeting, three technical consultation and rating review group meetings, and on-site inspection meetings for bronze-level units included four counties and cities.
The Pingtung County Greenhouse Gas Control Achievement Survey and Research and Business Conference was held on the 6th of August 2020. The conference aimed to gather and quantify the first phase of the Pingtung County Greenhouse Gas Control Implementation Plan's implementation results and invite various Pingtung County government departments to review and discuss improvement measures for non-compliant strategies.
The Pingtung County Low-Carbon Sustainable Homes Promotion Group's first committee meeting was held on the 20th of August 2020. The discussion included the tracking and reviewing the results of the first phase of the Pingtung County Greenhouse Gas Control Implementation Plan and the second phase of the implementation planning and strategies. The Minghua Community Development Association of Dalin Town and Chiayi County was invited to hold an experience sharing section on community-based citizen power plants.
2. Participate in Low Carbon and Sustainable Homeland Certification evaluation
This year's goal is to assist ten communities in registration and achieving bronze certification in three communities. Before submitting the final report, the project team has assisted 14 communities in registration successfully. With previous participation, all township in Pingtung County has participated in the certification after the Jiadong Township attending. In the first half of 2020, the project has assisted four townships (Jiadong Township, Taiwu Township, Wutai Township, and Majia Township), raised the township participation rate to 100%.
The project also assisted four villages in obtaining Bronze certification (Jiaxing Village of Taiwu Township, Xiali Village of Donggang Town, Lili Village of Chunri Township, and Sangongli Village of Chaozhou Town). The project has maintained certification (extension) and on-site inspection on the 24th of April 2020, which completed the on-site inspections in Hengchun Township and Wandan Township, and obtained the qualification to maintain the certification. This project also helped submit 19 extension achievements documents, which have all passed the review so far.
3. Community’s Coaching
Nine subsidized communities in 2018 need to be tracked and examed this year, and the examinations have been completed by the end of May 2020; all communities are in good condition. In terms of community-driven action projects, 14 communities were visited and reviewed this year. According to the communities' actual needs, the original low-carbon action project expansion and certification upgrades and other new projects are evaluated and assisted; eight communities have been assisted in participating in the low-carbon projects. The low-carbon projects include green roofs, wall planting or hedges, community farms, preservation and reuse of old buildings, permeable pavements, and low-carbon tourism. The projects mentioned above were completed on the 12th of November 2020. According to statistics, its construction benefits have reduced 600 kilowatt-hours of electricity, 400 liters of oil, increased 127.96 m2 of green area, and provided about 750 people a year of low-carbon diet, which in total reduced 1722.3 kg of CO2e emissions per year.
4. Cooperate with the EPA to promote the registration and verification of greenhouse gas inventory
From the 11th of June 2020 to the 19th of June 2020, the project has completed on-site inspections of 10 stationary pollution sources' greenhouse gas emissions. The inspection and integration results showed that the ten sources that were inspected this year did not meet the requirements of the EPA's controlled and reported threshold.
This project completed an on-site inspection of greenhouse gas emissions from fixed sources on the 23rd of September. The inspection results revealed that the Maanshan Nuclear Power Plant had not reached the EPA control threshold for three consecutive years; therefore, the project has submitted a letter to the EPA this year to apply for removal from the control list.
5. Enhance the ability to adapt to climate change based on the community
This project has delivered two community-based climate change and adjustment strategies on the 21st of April 2020 to explain the meeting plan. In the first half of the year, the project team has visited six communities, including Neipu Township, Jiuru Township, and Chunri Township, by explaining the change and adaptation strategy, people who live in the communities cam understood the entire process and its purpose. Moreover, the project team has also evaluated the current situation of the community.
This project has visited Chunri Township Lili Community and Jiuru Township Yushui and Daqiu communities on the 27th of September and the 23rd of October, respectively, for two community-based climate change adaptation sessions. The two briefing sessions mainly explained the current two modes of adaptation and mitigation in the face of climate change, introduced the current common adaptation strategies, conducted Participatory Capacity and Vulnerabilities Analysis (PCVA), and held Community-Based Adaptation to Climate Change (CBA) panel discussion. After the group discussion and analysis results, the project team had meetings with the communities and planned the adaptation plan that best fits the current situation. Based on the situation, some adaptation achievements have been made. A green shelter was built in Yushui Village, Jiuru Township, to reduce health problems to the local community's seniors from the high temperature. On the other hand, an automatic rain gauge was set up in Lili Village, Chunri Township, to monitor the precipitation in real-time to lengthen the response time and take early response measures. The project team completed these two adaptation actions on the 10th of December 2020.
6. Strengthen the promotion of Low-Carbon and Sustainable Homeland
Two low-carbon community and enterprise observation and learning activities were held on the 6th of July 2020 and the 17th of September 2020. The activities' participants include relevant bureaus of the government, communities in severe land subsidence areas, the potential units providing by the Social Affairs Department. Moreover, an observation and learning activity of renewable energy and low-carbon development in the community located in another county was held.
The project continues to maintain the Pingtung County Low-Carbon Sustainable Homeland Website. By the end of December 2020, a total of 59 news and three low-carbon sustainable homeland conferences will be published. A piece of news was also published on the Internet once on the 20th of November via electronic media. The news stated that Pingtung County was successfully recognized as an A-level indicator city after being evaluated by the international CDP organization.
7. Administrative cooperation
The project has supported the Environmental Protection Bureau handle the "Renewable Energy Visiting Activity-Minghua Community, Dalin Town, Chiayi County" on the 1st of May 2020, and EPA 2020 Annual Conference on the 1st of September 2020. Moreover, the project has been assisting the Environmental Protection Bureau in writing Pingtung County's 25 counties and cities' environmental sustainability performance evaluation projects and indicator results reports and cooperating with the Environmental Protection Bureau to participate in various EPA's explanatory meetings. The project also assisted in registering Pingtung County's local reduction demand on the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Offset Information Platform. As of the 30th of November 2020, a total of ten local demand reduction information have been published, including after-school tutoring classes in Wanluan Township Chishan Community, Ligang Township Xinguo Community Activity Center and Patrol Team Office, and ZTE activities in Gulou Village, Laiyi Township Center, Jiuru Township Yushui Community Activity Center, Jiuru Township Sankuai Community Activity Center, Chaozhou Town Sankong Community Activity Center, Wanluan Township Wanjin Community Activity Center, Chunri Township Qijia Community Activity Center and Taiwu Township Pinghe Community Public Area.
