BUSINESS COUNCIL MEMBER AND WELLINGTON CITY COUNCILLOR NICOLA YOUNG VISITS TAIWAN

April 4, 2023

Councillor Young visited Taipei, to represent the Mayor at the 2050 Net Zero summit; she was accompanied by Council’s chief digital officer James Roberts. The visit had three aims:

Reinforce and progress relationships with Taipei City at a political and executive level, enabling Wellington and Taipei to understand and learn from each other’s progress on Net Zero and Smart City.* (Over 30 city leaders Europe, Asia, the Americas, Africa and Oceania presented their city’s strategy and progress towards net zero).
Attend the 2050 Net Zero City Leaders summit – a forum for sharing ideas and lessons learnt.
Attend the 2023 Smart City Summit and Expo – an opportunity to see and hear about advanced technologies that are being applied to solve city challenges around the world.

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Councillor Young's focused on the building of relationships. She attended a lunch with Taipei’s deputy mayor (Lee Shu-Chuan) and the City Commissioner for Information Technology (Jack Chao). She also had a meeting with Mayor Wayne Chiang, who told her he visited Wellington some years ago – before he was Mayor.

Councillor Young also the opportunity to meet with Bill Chen, Taiwan's previous Representative to New Zealand who was a gracious host. He took a small group on a walking/MRT tour of Taipei’s major sights that finished with dinner ‘on the hoof’ at a night market. The following day he took Councillor Young (& Palmerston North Mayor Grant Smith) to Din Tai Fung, Taipei’s famous dumpling restaurant.

Amongst the great experiences that Councillor Young took away from this trip she reported back the following key themes that were discussed whilst she was there:

Invest in renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, and geothermal power to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Encourage the use of electric vehicles by providing charging infrastructure and incentivizing their purchase.

Promote sustainable building practices and design to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions.

Improve public transportation systems to reduce reliance on personal vehicles and promote low-carbon travel options.

Implement waste reduction and recycling programs to divert waste from landfills and reduce emissions from waste disposal.

Increase green spaces and urban forests to reduce the urban heat island effect and promote biodiversity.

City planning that provides residents with the majority of facilities (i.e. schools, shops, medical, recreation) within a 15-20 minute round trip.

Greater use of digital systems and applied technology to monitor the city and provide insights for efficiency and automation (e.g. improving transport use and flow).