Addressing some of the environmental challenges Taiwan will face in the next decade, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said yesterday that a future DPP government would focus on long-term solutions rather than short-term fixes.
Environmental activists, experts and DPP officials met yesterday in the second of a series of forums titled “Taiwan’s unavoidable future challenges” designed to help the party draw up its “10 Year Political Master Plan.”
Officials hope that the political agenda will show the party’s supporters it is ready to govern again.
Issues covered at the forum included methods to reduce Taiwan’s dependence on external energy sources, protecting water resources and the effects that global warming will have on the country.
“We are looking for ways Taiwan can survive in a world that is running out of resources,” National Taiwan University professor Wu Tsung-tsong (吳政忠) said. “Dealing with these problems will require ambitious, far-reaching policies.”
The latest government statistics show that more than 99 percent of Taiwan’s energy is imported, while annual carbon emissions are 2.5 times the world average.
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), under pressure to fulfill a promise to reduce 2020 emissions to 2005 levels, has announced plans to open the nation’s fourth nuclear power plant by October next year.
Wu said that it was “almost impossible” for the government to reach its target because of a delay to the date Taiwan is expected to reach its peak energy usage — the highest amount of emissions produced — from 2015 to between 2016 and 2020.
He said nuclear energy was not the answer to the country’s future energy needs, adding that it was debatable whether nuclear power should be classified as “clean energy.”
Instead, Wu called on the government to encourage more investment in renewable energy resources.
He said that in the next two years, “the government needs cross-departmental support for a sweeping new energy policy,” and in the long-term, it needs to privatize Taiwan Power Co (台電) and create “reasonable and transparent” renewable energy prices.
Taiwan Ecological Engineering Department Foundation director and former head of Chunghwa Telecom Hochen Tan (賀陳旦) said another issue was dwindling water supplies.
“We haven’t been doing enough to preserve water supplies,” Ho said. “We treat it like a commodity that needs to be made cheaper and wasted more.”
A future DPP administration should increase the price of water, he said, citing examples such as Denmark, where water is five times more expensive than it is in Taiwan.
Efforts to resolve water supply problems in the south should also take into account Aboriginal interests, Taiwan Aboriginal Society chairman Wang Ming-huei (汪明輝) said.
He said that government proposals to build dams and riverbank developments have gone ahead despite Aboriginal concerns about the negative environmental effects. Wang said the government had botched reconstruction efforts after Typhoon Morakot because of a lack of “cultural understanding and respect.”
“Some of the developments we have seen on Aboriginal land following the typhoon include betel nut, coffee and tea plantations on mountain slopes,” Wang said. “We have not received any benefits from this, instead the environment has worsened.”
Speaking after the forum, Tsai promised to address the concerns raised, saying that the DPP viewed addressing environmental concerns as an “unavoidable responsibility.”
“Taiwan faces a great threat from global warming,” Tsai said. “The way we see it, energy and the environment ... need to be dealt with in the medium to long-term vision of the country’s development. It needs to be far reaching and include a change in our basic framework.”
LOUD AND PROUD Taiwan might have taken a drubbing against Australia and Japan, but you might not know it from the enthusiasm and numbers of the fans Taiwan might not be expected to win the World Baseball Classic (WBC) but their fans are making their presence felt in Tokyo, with tens of thousands decked out in the team’s blue, blowing horns and singing songs. Taiwanese fans have packed out the Tokyo Dome for all three of their games so far and even threatened to drown out home team supporters when their team played Japan on Friday. They blew trumpets, chanted for their favorite players and had their own cheerleading squad who dance on a stage during the game. The team struggled to match that exuberance on the field, with
UPDATED TEST: The new rules aim to assess drivers’ awareness of risky behaviors and how they respond under certain circumstances, the Highway Bureau said Driver’s license applicants who fail to yield to pedestrians at intersections or to check blind spots, or omit pointing-and-calling procedures would fail the driving test, the Highway Bureau said yesterday. The change is set to be implemented at the end of the month, and is part of the bureau’s reform of the driving portion of the test, which has been criticized for failing to assess whether drivers can operate vehicles safely. Sedan drivers would be tested regarding yielding to pedestrians and turning their heads to check blind spots, while drivers of large vehicles would be tested on their familiarity with pointing-and-calling
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
A Taiwanese man apologized on Friday after saying in a social media post that he worked with Australia to provide scouting reports on Taiwan’s team, enabling Australia’s victory in this year’s World Baseball Classic (WBC), saying it was a joke and that he did not hold any position with foreign teams or Taiwan’s sports training center. Chen Po-hao (陳柏豪) drew the rage of many Taiwan baseball fans when he posted online on Thursday night, claiming credit for Australia’s 3-0 win over Taiwan in the opening game for Pool C, saying he worked as a physical therapist with the national team and
RSS