EDITORIAL: Environmental debate disappointing

Sunday's debate offered the presidential candidates an opportunity to touch on one of the most important questions facing this nation and every other country on Earth: How can we curb global warming to avert the catastrophic effects that the scientific community warns will follow?

Both Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) responded to Green Party Taiwan Secretary-General Pan Han-shen's (潘翰聲) questions with vague promises that left environmental experts unimpressed. Promises varied from raising taxes on fuel to pushing companies to improve energy efficiency.

Experts be forgiven for their skepticism, as neither Hsieh nor Ma, nor their parties, have the track records to put force behind their words.

While Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts global temperatures could rise as much as 6.4oC this century, most alarming is that the nation's politicians -- including Hsieh and Ma -- do not seem to feel the heat.

Ma eight years as mayor of Taipei -- during which he was in an excellent position to clean up one of the nation's most polluted cities -- for which he has little to show.

Hsieh, on the other hand, deserves praise for cleaning up Kaohsiung's Love River. But that project -- along with changing street lamps to solar power -- didn't even begin to address the source and depth of the environmental challenge facing us: our lifestyles. Compared with the hazard that millions of cars on the roads pose, solar panels for street lamps are simply a token project.

Not surprisingly, politicians are more willing to launch flashy projects that meet with little or no resistance than to push for policies that tackle the nation's soaring greenhouse gas emissions.

The Taiwan Environmental Protection Union has said the nation's carbon emissions have doubled in the past 18 years and will triple in another 17 years -- one of the fastest rates in the world. There is no room for another four years of inaction.

Ma Hsieh pledged this weekend to reduce emissions, with Hsieh discussing incentives to promote public transportation. However, voters have no way of knowing whether either candidate has the determination and strength to push what may be highly unpopular policies for the greater good.

The KMT's flip-flopping over the Suhua Freeway is a case in point. While Ma has repeatedly said the project's fate should hinge on the results of the ongoing environmental impact assessment, the KMT, during his party chairmanship, seemed ready to push through construction at all costs. And in the campaign for the presidency, Ma appears to have listened carefully to public opinion, promising the Taiwanese everything under the sun. Yet the KMT's voting record in the legislature and his own mayorship leave little hope that Ma sees environmental conservation as a top priority.

More it illustrates a problem that Li Ken-cheng (李根政), a former member of the Environmental Impact Review Committee, hinted at after the debate. Green policies have been hostage to party politics over the past eight years, as the legislative and executive branches jostled for control of public opinion.

But the environment is one issue where urgency leaves no room for politicizing. If things are to change, the KMT and the DPP must show a united front on cutting emissions. Voters, meanwhile, should demand clearer platforms on the environment and push the presidential candidates in the few weeks left until election day to spend as much time expounding their visions for a green Taiwan as they have on promising token cross-strait flights and a booming economy.