The trouble with reports and studies published by international organizations, foreign agencies or foreign authors is that one really has to read them, not just skim the surface or look at select numbers.
Think of the furor in the local media last month over the release of Project 2049 Institute research fellow Ian Easton’s The Chinese Invasion Threat, which media reports touted as saying that Beijing had finalized a plan to invade Taiwan in 2020.
It turned out that the source about the invasion plan was a white paper published by the Ministry of National Defense in Taipei in October 2013, while Easton actually said the Chinese military had decided it is incapable of invading Taiwan at the present time, although the idea is still a long-term possibility.
There was a great to-do among environmental groups and even some Democratic Progressive Party lawmakers this week about the 2018 Global Climate Risk Index published by the Bonn-based non-profit environmental organizations Germanwatch and CAN Europe.
The index ranked Taiwan seventh out of the 182 nations surveyed, compared with its ranking of 51 in last year’s edition.
Lawmakers and others on Thursday complained that the Environmental Protection Administration has to do more to reduce air pollution and asked whether the ministry’s Office of Energy and Carbon Reduction was doing its job, given that China ranked behind Taiwan at No. 12 even though China’s air pollution problem is far worse than this nation’s.
The trouble is that while air pollution is certainly one of the factors contributing to climate change, the rankings in the annual Global Climate Risk Index have nothing to do with pollution.
The index only analyzes how nations have been affected by weather-related loss events such as storms, floods and heat waves in the past year and over a 20-year period starting in 1997.
This year’s index looks at what happened last year in each nation and ranks countries accordingly, as well as looking at the period from 1997 to last year and giving a long-term ranking for each nation.
Taiwan ranked No. 7 this year because of the abnormally cold winter weather at the start of last year that was blamed for the deaths of 85 people, as well as the loss of lives and the environmental and infrastructural damage caused by the six typhoons that struck the nation, especially Meranti and Megi, which hit almost back-to-back in September.
September was a particularly destructive month last year, as hurricanes Matthew and Nicole that struck Haiti that month are responsible for that nation’s No. 1 position in this year’s index.
Extreme droughts caused by El Nino, not excessive water and rain, placed Zimbabwe at No. 2 in the index, while a powerful cyclone that hit Fiji in February placed it at No. 4.
In the long-term rankings, Honduras, Haiti and Myanmar led the index, while Taiwan was placed at No. 38, one behind China.
Taiwan is threatened by air pollution and climate change, but the complaints raised this week confused apples with oranges, even though the government does need to be doing more to tackle both issues.
Working to cope with and reduce the effects of climate change on this nation is a long-term project, something the government has never been particularly good at, no matter which party is in power.
Lawmakers, with their eyes firmly fixed on the next election cycle, excel in proposing short-term, quick-fix patches for issues caused by systemic problems.
It takes time to fully read and digest reports, just as it does to develop concrete solutions to major problems and issues such as climate change.
The nation would be better served if all parties were willing to commit the necessary time and effort to reach such goals, and spent less time pontificating and producing hot air.
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