The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government should be commended for sending representatives from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to Bali to participate in the UN Climate Change Conference, even though Taiwan has no formal representation at the international body.
Upon returning from the summit, Deputy EPA Minister Chang Feng-teng (
But the problem with many of the nation's environmental laws is that they exist only on paper; they may be well designed, but they are poorly enforced.
This is evidenced in the government's willingness to allow Formosa Group to build a steel plant and the fact that two of the nation's power plants rank first and sixth in the world in terms of the amount of carbon-dioxide emissions they churn out.
But blame should not only be placed at the DPP's door. When the party came to power, the laws in place were those created -- and rarely enforced -- by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) during the Martial Law era, when economic development outweighed environmental concerns.
If KMT presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (
Government officials can talk until they turn blue in the face about the environment, but unless they learn to view economic development and environmental policy as equally important and build a framework for local and national agencies to tackle pollution together, it'll just be more hot air.
Nobel laureate Lee Yuan-tseh (
In a country that imports 98 percent of its energy and is heavily dependent on fossil fuels to keep its economy running, authorities should pour more capital into developing and promoting alternative energies.
As the price of crude oil is almost US$100 per barrel and 10,500 tonnes of oil recently spilled into the Yellow Sea, damaging fragile ecosystems, there is even more incentive to act fast.
Not only is "green" energy the better option ethically and in terms of sustainability, it also makes economic sense.
Last year alone, the solar energy industry pulled in NT$21.1 billion (US$650 million) in revenues and, according to government estimates, it is expected to see phenomenal growth, hitting NT$403.1 billion by 2015.
Gintech Energy, to give one example, recently signed a NT$1.95 billion supply contract with Canadian Solar.
With a little political will, there is no reason why Taiwan can't create a sustainable energy industry that is as large and important as its semiconductor industry. The government should provide greater incentives to develop and nurture the sustainable energy sector.
In addition, exporting sustainable technologies overseas would boost the nation's political capital internationally and help reduce global warming.
Both presidential candidates need to come clean on their environmental policies to give commentators and the public a chance to examine the viability and sustainability of their proposals.
In late January, Taiwan’s first indigenous submarine, the Hai Kun (海鯤, or Narwhal), completed its first submerged dive, reaching a depth of roughly 50m during trials in the waters off Kaohsiung. By March, it had managed a fifth dive, still well short of the deep-water and endurance tests required before the navy could accept the vessel. The original delivery deadline of November last year passed months ago. CSBC Corp, Taiwan, the lead contractor, now targets June and the Ministry of National Defense is levying daily penalties for every day the submarine remains unfinished. The Hai Kun was supposed to be
Reports about Elon Musk planning his own semiconductor fab have sparked anxiety, with some warning that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) could lose key customers to vertical integration. A closer reading suggests a more measured conclusion: Musk is advancing a strategic vision of in-house chip manufacturing, but remains far from replacing the existing foundry ecosystem. For TSMC, the short-term impact is limited; the medium-term challenge lies in supply diversification and pricing pressure, only in the long term could it evolve into a structural threat. The clearest signal is Musk’s announcement that Tesla and SpaceX plan to develop a fab project dubbed “Terafab”
Most schoolchildren learn that the circumference of the Earth is about 40,000km. They do not learn that the global economy depends on just 160 of those kilometers. Blocking two narrow waterways — the Strait of Hormuz and the Taiwan Strait — could send the economy back in time, if not to the Stone Age that US President Donald Trump has been threatening to bomb Iran back to, then at least to the mid-20th century, before the Rolling Stones first hit the airwaves. Over the past month and a half, Iran has turned the Strait of Hormuz, which is about 39km wide at
The ongoing Middle East crisis has reinforced an uncomfortable truth for Taiwan: In an increasingly interconnected and volatile world, distant wars rarely remain distant. What began as a regional confrontation between the US, Israel and Iran has evolved into a strategic shock wave reverberating far beyond the Persian Gulf. For Taiwan, the consequences are immediate, material and deeply unsettling. From Taipei’s perspective, the conflict has exposed two vulnerabilities — Taiwan’s dependence on imported energy and the risks created when Washington’s military attention is diverted. Together, they offer a preview of the pressures Taiwan might increasingly face in an era of overlapping geopolitical
RSS