Environmental Protection Administration officials and environment ministers from seven Central American countries met at this year's Environment Ministerial Meeting, which ended on Oct. 19. In the future, Taiwan's public and private sectors will become actively involved in various business opportunities aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions in accordance with the clean development mechanism carried out by the UN Environment Program Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean.
At first glance, Taiwan seems to be a role model for environmental protection. Although for political reasons the nation is unable to become a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol, the Taiwanese still pursue their obligations as world citizens. However, from 1990 to 2004, Taiwan's carbon dioxide (CO2) emission rate doubled, giving it the worst record of all nations in terms of CO2 emission growth rate.
Currently, Taiwan is the world's 23rd-largest CO2 emitter, which means that it is not pushing itself to improve. Going as far as participating in the recent Environment Ministerial Meeting with Latin American allies only shows the nation's unrealistic approach in handling environmental issues.
Also, utilizing public resources to invest in Central America further reveals Taiwan's hypocritical use of environmental protection as an excuse to engage in dollar diplomacy.
On the issue of CO2 emissions, there is still a lot of basic work to do right here. Therefore, it is unrealistic to negotiate politically motivated deals for carbon dioxide emissions trading with other countries or to help less developed nations emit less CO2 in order to decrease overall emissions.
Today, the overall results of efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions have been unsuccessful and industrial and business groups have insisted on obstructing the implementation of a target year for cutting CO2 emissions.
This is like a person preparing to go on a diet without measuring his or her weight first or setting a weight-loss goal but then going to help a friend lose weight. Such reasoning is clearly absurd.
Premier Su Tseng-chang's (
On top of that, Chinese Steel has planned to build a steel mill in the proposed Pinnan Industrial Complex (
Once these projects are completed, the nation's southwest coast will have become completely artificial and the greenhouse gas emissions rate will have increased by 20 percent to 40 percent.
Vice Premier Tsai Ing-wen (
But Tsai did not mention a word about government projects to develop major CO2 emitting industries, deliberately hiding this truth from Taiwan's diplomatic allies.
The new documentary An Inconvenient Truth starring former US vice president Al Gore tells about the dangers of climate change. The most shocking scenes are of the rapidly melting ice in the Antarctic, Arctic and Greenland's glaciers. In addition, the US Department of Defense published a long-concealed confidential document saying that the ice thickness of the Arctic Sea has shrunk by a half.
Science Magazine published a report in November 2004 of a survey of global warming research from across the world. It said that not one of the studies denied the gravity of global warming. However, a random sampling of media reports showed that 53 percent of articles said that global warming has not been confirmed. It could be said that there has been a group of influential people over recent years who are unwilling to face the truth, and even distort it.
The end of the film mentions an activist plan to vote for public representatives who care about global warming. With the political culture in Taiwan today, elections have turned politicians into stage entertainers and fostered the forming of factions, which results in electing corrupt and incapable liars to office. The public must open its eyes and carefully examine who is telling the truth and who is lying.
Pan Han-shen is steering board member of the Green Party Taiwan and a Green Party candidate for the Taipei City Council.
Translated by Lin Ya-ti
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
In an article published on this page on Tuesday, Kaohsiung-based journalist Julien Oeuillet wrote that “legions of people worldwide would care if a disaster occurred in South Korea or Japan, but the same people would not bat an eyelid if Taiwan disappeared.” That is quite a statement. We are constantly reading about the importance of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), hailed in Taiwan as the nation’s “silicon shield” protecting it from hostile foreign forces such as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and so crucial to the global supply chain for semiconductors that its loss would cost the global economy US$1
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
Sasha B. Chhabra’s column (“Michelle Yeoh should no longer be welcome,” March 26, page 8) lamented an Instagram post by renowned actress Michelle Yeoh (楊紫瓊) about her recent visit to “Taipei, China.” It is Chhabra’s opinion that, in response to parroting Beijing’s propaganda about the status of Taiwan, Yeoh should be banned from entering this nation and her films cut off from funding by government-backed agencies, as well as disqualified from competing in the Golden Horse Awards. She and other celebrities, he wrote, must be made to understand “that there are consequences for their actions if they become political pawns of