On Feb. 12, activists staged anti-pollution demonstrations in Taichung and Kaohsiung. These will be followed on Saturday next week, for the sixth year running, by anti-nuclear protests in Taipei, Kaohsiung and Taitung.
There are several motivations behind these calls for action.
In northern Taiwan, there is the threat posed by the Jinshan and Guosheng nuclear power plants in New Taipei City’s Shihmen (石門) and Wanli (萬里) districts. In central Taiwan, there is severe air pollution. In Taitung County, there is the issue of nuclear waste storage, and in southern Taiwan, there is an even more severe challenge as it faces the double threat of nuclear power and air pollution.
These are the environmental problems in each region, but lurking in the background is the issue of overall energy and industrial models.
The suspension of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Gongliao District (貢寮) does not mean that the nuclear power issue has been resolved.
In southern Taiwan, the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Ma-anshan (馬鞍山), Pingtung County, is to be the last nuclear plant in Taiwan to be decommissioned, in 2025. This is also the plant experiencing the most problems and the only one located over a fault line, causing cross-generational concerns in connection to nuclear waste storage. It is necessary to ensure that the operations of the Ma-anshan plant are not extended and that the government does not continue to make a mess of the nuclear waste issue.
In Kaohsiung — Taiwan’s second-biggest city — the petrochemical and steel industries are fundamental, and it contains the nation’s earliest petrochemical industry site. It is home to the Linyuan (林園) Petrochemical Area, Renda (仁大) Industrial Area and state-run CPC Corp, Taiwan’s Dalin Township (大林) refinery, as well as China Steel Corp, a main polluter.
There are coal-fired and natural gas generators at the Hsinta Power Plant and other natural gas plants in southern Taiwan, in addition to the two large coal-fired generators that are under renewal at the Dalin plant. Furthermore, the ships in Kaohsiung Harbor and more than 10,000 cargo trucks produce pollution equivalent to a large factory.
As the development of public transportation is lagging behind, residents are dependent on more than 2 million scooters and motorcycles, and more than 800,000 cars, which is also a huge pollution source.
The operation of the city as a whole — from industry and energy, to the harbor and transportation — relies on dirty fossil fuels such as coal and gasoline. Only by initiating non-nuclear, low-carbon energy generation and industrial transformation will it be possible to remove the government’s excuse to extend the service life of the Ma-anshan plant and at the same time reduce pollution.
This is why the South Taiwan Anti-nuclear Action Alliance is making the following calls at Saturday next week’s protest:
First, set an energy savings target to reach a goal of negative energy consumption growth, increase standby energy reserves to stabilize the power supply, replace coal-fired power generation with natural gas during a transitional stage and create enough room to develop sources of renewable energy.
Second, following President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration’s proposal for a goal of 20 percent “renewable” energy by 2025, the government should announce a concrete eight-year strategy and timetable so every future president could be held accountable during their time in office.
Third, add an energy tax to internalize all costs for the destruction of the environment and human health. This is a necessary legal action to develop “clean” energy. Since 2009, this was part of then-president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) platform, as it is part of Tsai’s, but nothing has happened.
Fourth, implement a comprehensive response policy including stricter controls during the time of year when air pollution is at its worst. Coal-fired power plants and big factories should coordinate in order to reduce loads and cut emissions, the public should be encouraged to use public transport and controls on high-polluting vehicles should be tightened.
Controls on overall pollution volumes in Kaohsiung and Pingtung, which environmental protection groups have worked for many years to bring about, will reach their second stage of specified cuts next year, which should bring a tangible and substantive reduction, and will simultaneously guide industrial transformation.
Energy and industrial transformation is the “shared, but differentiated” responsibility of all Taiwanese, so building a culture of mutual trust and cooperation is an important and fundamental task.
The government must lead the changes by proposing concrete policies that impact people and working actively to prevent giving the impression of corrupt collusion with businesses. It should also make information transparent and use public participation to increase policy credibility, as well as communicate effectively to solicit a public response and make companies and people from all walks of life take action.
The Tsai administration has made many promises in relation to nuclear power and energy transformation, but if the government really is to take action, public supervision must never relax.
The protests on Feb. 19 expressed central and southern Taiwan’s anger over air pollution in those regions, as well as their strong hopes for its reduction.
Next week’s protest will be a manifestation of civic power that will remind the government and society that we must not forget the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear disaster. It will call on the government to strengthen its resolve to initiate energy and industrial transformation, while also working toward nuclear power abolition and air pollution reduction.
Lee Ken-cheng is executive director of Citizen of the Earth, Taiwan.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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