The government's attempts to demonstrate its commitment to environmental protection during a two-day National Energy Conference which concluded yesterday were largely a failure, as angry environmental activists walked out of the conference to protest its hollow conclusions and ambivalence.
The thrust of the controversy came from the perceived lack of a target for cutting carbon dioxide emissions, even though the Ministry of Economic Affairs said conference members have reached a consensus on capping emissions, and establishing a trading system for emissions allowances based on the Kyoto Protocol.
Taiwan's current energy policies were made at the last National Energy Conference in 1998, when the government pledged to keep carbon dioxide emissions at the levels in 2000 (based on estimated levels for that year) for the next 20 year by enhancing energy productivity by 28 percent. But as almost every panel speaker at the conference said, achieving this target has been made nearly impossible because of inappropriate policy-making.
As the media and environmental groups, including, Taiwan's Green Party (綠黨), the Natural Environmental Protection Foundation (自然環境保護基金會), the Homemaker's Union and Foundation (主婦聯盟) and others were waiting for an adjustment to that target, the ministry issued a report that did not provide a lower emissions target, and even expressed reluctance to maintain the existing one.
The ministry's report said the government "plans to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 23 million tonnes by 2010, 71 million tonnes by 2015, and 170 million tonnes by 2025," but it failed to provide a baseline to compare such reductions and cast doubt on the government's determination to carry out a so-called "no regret" policy.
"The conference is a lie and a joke," shouted a representative from the Green Party, who was among 20 people who waited in line to speak at the podium during the closing ceremony.
The lack of concrete measures to achieve the reductions -- like the ambiguity that caused the 1998 policies to fail -- was again a major defect of this year's conference.
Flaws in the 16-page report were numerous: it said the government aims to cut the number of automobiles, but did not provide details for how it would accomplish this; it said it will come up with incentives to encourage industries to cut emissions, but did not specify what the incentives will be; and it noted that the government will encourage construction of "green buildings," but failed to include the policy as part of urban design schemes.
The data provided by officials and speakers were also outdated, with the latest figures coming from 2003.
The report also said that the ministry expects that electricity rates will jump 49 percent to 99 percent by 2025 from their current levels.
Another incident that irritated the activists was the limited time for discussion.
Rather than open the floor to a variety of opinions, the conference mainly featured officials, college professors and representatives from industries, who shared their research, data and suggestions formulated before the meeting.
Furthermore, Yin Chi-ming (
To ease the air of frustration, Minister of Economic Affairs Ho Mei-yueh (
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