Nineteen Taiwanese business groups ranging from telecoms and communications commodities to household appliances signed up yesterday for a voluntary energy-saving program that will help cut energy consumption by 5 percent in three years.
The Bureau of Energy, which is organizing the program, hopes it will help reduce 30,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions and 53 million kilowatt-hours of electricity in three years, as well as create NT$450 million (US$14.19 million) of green industry business opportunities.
“Despite having been labeled as a successful case of development, Taiwan’s economic achievements have actually resulted from the previous low costs of manpower, land and capital,” Vice Premier Sean Chen (陳冲) said at the signing ceremony.
The low cost of Taiwan’s economic development included costs to the environment, the vice premier said. The government has organized related programs to reach the goals of energy saving and carbon reduction, achieving negative growth in national energy consumption of minus 2.84 percent in 2008 compared with 2007, and minus 2.85 percent last year compared with the previous year.
Speaking on the same occasion, Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen-shiang (施顏祥) provided additional statistics to prove the worth of related investments.
Shih said that since 2006, the Bureau of Energy has signed energy-saving agreements with convenience stores, wholesalers, supermarkets, department stores, hospitals, shopping malls and hotels, amounting to a total of NT$3 billion in energy-saving investment and leading to savings of NT$1.5 billion in electricity costs annually.
He said that a total of more than 1,700 stores in the telecoms, communications and consumer electronics sectors invest NT$450 million in energy-saving facilities each year, representing the equivalent of 50 million kilowatt-hours of electricity saved.
Shih also said that the government should improve the nation’s energy efficiency by more than 2 percent each year and should make every effort to increase the efficiency in 2025 by 50 percent compared with the 2005 figure. Carbon dioxide emissions, meanwhile, should be reduced to the level of 2000 by 2025 and further reduced to 50 percent by 2050.
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