Franz Fischler says that the 2°C reduction proposed by Academia Sinica in its June “Taiwan Deep Decarbonization Policy” white paper will not be enough to avert the dangerous effects of climate change.
Fischler, who says he isn’t familiar with the report’s contents, tells the Taipei Times that a “limitation of global warming to 2°C is not ambitious enough.”
“We must go for 1.5°C because recent scientific studies show that the environmental damages with 2°C global warming would be more severe than former studies expected,” says the former EU Commissioner for Agriculture, Rural Development and Fisheries.
Photo: AFP
Fischler will be in Taipei on Sept. 8 to give a lecture, Decarbonizing the World is a must to save Agriculture and Fisheries, when he will discuss the impact climate change will have on agriculture and fisheries.
“Agriculture and fisheries are more affected from climate change than most other economic sectors. Therefore, the farmers and fishermen must engage in climate policy as much as they can,” Fischler says.
The lecture will be held at the Taiwan Academy of Banking and Finance and is part of the Lung Yingtai Cultural Foundation’s (龍應台文化基金會) Taipei Salon (台北沙龍) series of lectures by international speakers. Lung Ying-tai (龍應台), the foundation’s founder and former Minister of Culture, will moderate.
Photo courtesy of Andrei Pungovschi
Though the Academia Sinica report may fall short in its recommendations on curbing temperature rise, Fischler agrees with its overall conclusion that Taiwan, like many developed countries, isn’t facing up to the urgency of climate change.
According to the report, Taiwan’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2015 reached 284.643 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, up from 137.854 million metric tonnes in 1990. Taiwan placed 56th in the Germanwatch Climate Change Performance Index 2019, dropping two places from last year’s report and ranking among the world’s worst performers.
“Many developing countries are for the time being more ambitious to implement the Paris Agreement than the industrialized countries. What is needed is more pressure from the civil society. Then the political leaders will go together and tackle the problem,” Fischler says.
Photo: AFP
For a country with significant fisheries and agricultural industries, time is running out to do so because the world “must achieve decarbonization within the next 30 years.”
When asked if nuclear power is an option while transitioning to renewable energy, Fischler says it depends on a proper risk assessment, which varies from country to country.
Instead, Taiwan, like the rest of the world, has to “increase energy efficiency, to drastically reduce energy consumption in the industry, and only for the remaining demand to foster renewable energy sources,” he says.
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