Taichung City Government, this year, successfully organized the “2017 UNFCCC NFO Forum” for the first time. City Mayor Lin Chia-lung was invited on the 28th to address at a keynote speech entitled “Building a Livable Sustainable City.” Mayor Lin talked about four challenges of Taichung including imbalance of urban development, traffic congestion, climate change risk and environmental pollution. The City Government would tackle each challenge by rebalancing regional development, adapting to climate change, and forging the public and private partnership in order to build Taichung an international city.

Taichung City Government on the 28th organized the 2017 UNFCCC NFO Forum at Feng Chia University and at the opening ceremony, Political Deputy Minister of Ministry of Foreign Affairs, François Chih-Chung Wu, Vice President of Feng Chia University, Lung-Shih Yang, Vice President of the International Institute for Sustainable Development, Langston James Goree, and Indonesian Parliament member, Mr. Parlindungan Purba were riding bikes together to produce energy as a symbol to reduce carbon emission with practical action. About 400 attendees from the industry, governmental agencies, academia, and youth representatives joined the conference.

As pointed by Mayor Lin, Taichung City boasts various advantages to develop itself into an international livable city but at the same time, it faces four major challenges of imbalance urban development, traffic congestion, climate change risk, and environmental pollution. Through three strategies of rebalancing regional development, adaption to climate change, and the public and private partnership, challenges have been met. Today, the City Government shared the governance experience and referred to valuable comments provided by international experts and scholars with the aim to promote Taichung as an international class city after building itself into the second largest city in Taiwan.

Mayor Lin, additionally, mentioned his previous work in United Nations University in Tokyo, Japan as a researcher to study the issue of sustainable development and engage in the establishment of indicators of sustainable development of green national income. When serving as a legislator, he also attended in the UN’s annual meeting in Portland and initiated with several NGOs. After taking the post of Taichung City Mayor, he went to Seoul for the 2015 ICLEI World Congress to exchange ideas with Mayor of Seoul, Mr. Park Woon-soon about low carbon communities.

After promulgating action guidelines of climate change and 97 items of new action plan, Taichung City Government in 2015 received the special honor for the full compliance of standards of Compact of Mayors, one of the 20 leading global cities that demonstrate initial achievements of carbon emission deduction.

With the promulgation of three green acts including autonomous rules for low carbon city, coal material control, and plantation on open spaces, Taichung City carried out its promises of a sustainable city gradually. In the future, Taichung City will continuously contribute itself to global objectives of being low carbon and sustainable.

Political Deputy Minister of Ministry of Foreign Affairs, François Chih-Chung Wu believed global warming is an urgent issue that shall be resolved through close cooperation between and among global cities for the beginning of regional governance. Taichung’s effort to develop itself as a low carbon city has been highly recognized as it is now led by one of the best mayors in Taiwan. It is hoped that through today’s conference we will understand the development trend of low carbon and sustainability better and Taiwan can link up to the world and make its own contribution.

The Promotion Office of Low Carbon City stated this conference invited ten foreign speakers from nine countries including Vice President of IISD and the IISD Representative to the UN, Mr. Langston James Goree. Under the theme of sustainable development, SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) was discussed to realize governmental agreement with the implementation of local policies.

Additionally, House of Regional Representatives of The Republic of Indonesia, Mr. Parlindungan Purba shared Indonesia’s renewable energy and sustainable development goals. Later, the conference discussed on three separate issues including: “Governance Partnership of Climate Change between INGOs and Local Governments,” “Building a Livable City and Adaptation and Mitigation to Climate Change,” and “Development Urban Food Systems for Low Carbon and Sustainable Cities” with the participation of 19 domestic and international experts and 400 attendees. For more information, please visit the website at http://www.livabletaichung.com/.