Legislators from three political parties last week called for the creation of a climate action law.
More than a dozen members of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) and the New Power Party expressed support for the law at a news conference at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei.
DPP Legislator Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) said he submitted a draft of a climate action act in December last year that included a goal of reaching net zero emissions by 2050 and setting up a climate change coordination post at the Executive Yuan.
Net zero emissions means Taiwan would remove the same amount of human-caused greenhouse gases it produces through reduction measures.
The Legislative Yuan has not yet begun to discuss the draft, as it typically waits for the Executive Yuan to propose its own version of the same bill before beginning discussions.
The Environmental Protection Administration has already proposed a climate action act, but it still needs to pass a lengthy administrative procedure before it can be sent to the Legislative Yuan, Hung said.
This process is expected to take months, he added, calling on the Executive Yuan to speed up the process.
Japan and South Korea have created industry-oriented action plans to combat climate change and Taiwan should do the same as soon as possible, he said.
Deputy Legislative Speaker Tsai Chi-chang (蔡其昌), a member of the DPP, said that climate change is not just an environmental issue, but also an economic one, as Taiwanese companies might be unable to secure overseas orders if they fail to adopt sustainable measures.
The economy and the environment should no longer be regarded as two opposing forces, but instead should be seen as an intertwined whole, he said.
TPP Legislator Chiu Chen-yuan (邱臣遠) said that lawmakers from all parties should work to create a long-term climate change plan.
Taiwan’s law related to climate change — the Greenhouse Gas Reduction and Management Act (溫室氣體減量及管理法) — is not sufficiently ambitious in its goals, which is why there is an urgent need for a climate action act, DPP Legislator Lai Pin-yu (賴品妤) said.
The current act aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 to no more than 50 percent of those emitted in 2005, which does not come close to the goal of zero net emissions by 2050, she said.
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