President-elect William Lai (賴清德) yesterday said that he would push forward the net zero transition, and accelerate geothermal and hydrogenic energy developments after taking office next month.
Lai made the remarks in a prerecorded video played at the opening session of the Earth Solutions 2024 Sustainable Design Action Conference held in Taipei on Earth Day yesterday.
The transition to net zero is an urgent task, and Taiwan must speed up its pace and strengthen its competitiveness in sustainable development to keep up with the global trend, Lai said.
Photo: Chen Yu-fu, Taipei Times
Taiwan has laid a good foundation in the past few years and has competitive advantages, he said, adding that therefore, if the nation makes good use of its advantages in the information and communication technology industry, as well as the strength of its financial sector, it can make swift progress and establish a new international paradigm in facing the challenges of climate change.
He said he would push forward with the net zero transformation using five main strategies.
The first is to initiate a second energy transition by creating a smart and shared green energy strategy, including accelerating the development of geothermal, hydrogenic, biomass and marine energies; and maximizing the use of green energy in Taiwan while at the same time speeding up carbon reduction by implementing carbon capture and storage technologies, he said.
The second is to push the biaxial transformation of the digital and green industries, Lai said, adding that he would use technologies to boost industrial development, establish a net zero innovation and technology platform, build smart energy systems, promote green manufacturing and expand the circular economy.
He also plans to establish a green banking system, improve carbon disclosure, enhance sustainable finance, and speed up industry’s low-carbon transition through carbon pricing and market mechanisms, Lai said.
Third is to promote net zero sustainable green living, including a zero-waste, low-carbon diet, environmentally friendly green fashion, energy saving green buildings, low-carbon transportation networks and promoting buying services instead of buying products, he said, adding that communication with the public is needed to implement a low-carbon lifestyle.
Fourth is to have the government provide strong backing for the net zero transformation, including forming global information advisory groups, industrial technical service teams, setting up digital service platforms and publicizing net zero action guidelines regularly, to assist industries transition to net zero while reducing the negative impact on them, he said.
Fifth is to ensure a “just transition” to net zero, meaning that the government would not leave any industry, company or individual behind in the process of transformation, he added.
Lai said that according to a report by market research firm Kantar Taiwan, 84 percent of consumers want to lead a sustainable lifestyle, but only 27 percent are changing their behavior.
Therefore, how to design more creative and humane systems to reduce the gap between value and action, allowing people to live sustainably without paying a heavy toll in their daily lives, is something that every participant of the conference can help with, he said.
“Let’s find new ways of solving old problems, and good ways of solving new problems,” he said.
Lai, in his capacity as vice president, later yesterday joined President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) at the Presidential Office to meet with representatives of environmental groups.
Lai expressed gratitude for their contribution to environmental protection and pledged his new administration would work with them to safeguard the environment.
NO RECIPROCITY: Taipei has called for cross-strait group travel to resume fully, but Beijing is only allowing people from its Fujian Province to travel to Matsu, the MAC said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday criticized an announcement by the Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism that it would lift a travel ban to Taiwan only for residents of China’s Fujian Province, saying that the policy does not meet the principles of reciprocity and openness. Chinese Deputy Minister of Culture and Tourism Rao Quan (饒權) yesterday morning told a delegation of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers in a meeting in Beijing that the ministry would first allow Fujian residents to visit Lienchiang County (Matsu), adding that they would be able to travel to Taiwan proper directly once express ferry
STUMPED: KMT and TPP lawmakers approved a resolution to suspend the rate hike, which the government said was unavoidable in view of rising global energy costs The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday said it has a mandate to raise electricity prices as planned after the legislature passed a non-binding resolution along partisan lines to freeze rates. Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers proposed the resolution to suspend the price hike, which passed by a 59-50 vote. The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) voted with the KMT. Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) of the KMT said the resolution is a mandate for the “immediate suspension of electricity price hikes” and for the Executive Yuan to review its energy policy and propose supplementary measures. A government-organized electricity price evaluation board in March
FAST RELEASE: The council lauded the developer for completing model testing in only four days and releasing a commercial version for use by academia and industry The National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) yesterday released the latest artificial intelligence (AI) language model in traditional Chinese embedded with Taiwanese cultural values. The council launched the Trustworthy AI Dialogue Engine (TAIDE) program in April last year to develop and train traditional Chinese-language models based on LLaMA, the open-source AI language model released by Meta. The program aims to tackle the information bias that is often present in international large-scale language models and take Taiwanese culture and values into consideration, it said. Llama 3-TAIDE-LX-8B-Chat-Alpha1, released yesterday, is the latest large language model in traditional Chinese. It was trained based on Meta’s Llama-3-8B
NOVEL METHODS: The PLA has adopted new approaches and recently conducted three combat readiness drills at night which included aircraft and ships, an official said Taiwan is monitoring China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) exercises for changes in their size or pattern as the nation prepares for president-elect William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20, National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) said yesterday. Tsai made the comment at a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, in response to Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wang Ting-yu’s (王定宇) questions. China continues to employ a carrot-and-stick approach, in which it applies pressure with “gray zone” tactics, while attempting to entice Taiwanese with perks, Tsai said. These actions aim to help Beijing look like it has