The coalition government led by conservative Australian Prime Minister John Howard suffered defeat in the election on Nov. 25. Labor party leader Kevin Rudd secured victory, calling on election eve for policy on climate change to be a priority.
Taiwan's political strategy remains tied to the issue of national identity and sovereignty.
If the public throws enough votes behind an environmentally oriented party for it to secure a legislator-at-large seat in the elections next month, it would be a catalyst to force the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to focus more on environmental issues.
Australia's per capita carbon-dioxide emissions rank second in the world. Mining, meat farming and transportation are all major culprits.
Australians don't need former US vice president Al Gore to tell them global warming is real -- they have experienced the effects of climate change through a series of damaging droughts.
While in power, Howard followed the US' lead, enthusiastically supporting the invasion of Iraq, refusing to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, taking a non-committal stance at APEC and promoting nuclear power to the international community as a means of reducing the greenhouse effect. Rudd rose to power by opposing the deployment of Australian troops to Iraq. He advocates the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, which would give his country negotiation rights at the post-Kyoto summit in Bali next month. All are measures promoted by Australia's third-largest political force, the Greens.
The Green Party proposes a stop to new coal mines, canceling subsidies to the mining industry, stopping uranium extraction and exportation, carbon taxes and sustainable energy.
Taiwan produces 1 percent of the world's carbon dioxide emissions. Its per capita emissions are behind only Australia and the US and are drawing international concern. The DPP, however, claims Taiwan doesn't need to ratify the Kyoto Protocol because we are not a UN member. The DPP's bid for UN membership suddenly flies out the window.
When the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012, the EU, Japan and other countries may begin to impose import taxes on goods produced in high carbon-emitting countries. Taiwanese industries will relocate and the economy will collapse.
Even more unbelievably, Environmental Protection Administration Minister Winston Dang (陳重信) actually opposed setting a schedule for emission reductions in the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Act, which has passed its first reading in the legislature.
Yet, during a visit from Mohan Munasinghe, vice chairman of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Dang boasted that the Act is a first among developing nations.
We used to be proud of the nation's economic prosperity -- now we are worried about looming ecological disaster.
DPP presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (
If Taiwan Plastic Corp, whose industrial activity accounts for over one-quarter of the nation's emissions, gains permission to build another steel plant, it will soon be responsible for one-third of carbon dioxide output.
When the UN holds its annual summit on climate change in Bali on Saturday, various environmental groups will protest at the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall and in Taichung, Changhua, Yunlin and Kaohsiung. The public is making its concerns clear. How can politicians ignore that?
Pan Han-shen is Taiwan Green Party's secretary-general and a part-time lecturer at Aletheia University.
Translated by Angela Hong
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
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
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
The military is conducting its annual Han Kuang exercises in phases. The minister of national defense recently said that this year’s scenarios would simulate defending the nation against possible actions the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) might take in an invasion of Taiwan, making the threat of a speculated Chinese invasion in 2027 a heated agenda item again. That year, also referred to as the “Davidson window,” is named after then-US Indo-Pacific Command Admiral Philip Davidson, who in 2021 warned that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had instructed the PLA to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. Xi in 2017
RSS