Greenpeace Taiwan yesterday morning held simultaneous demonstrations outside the campaign headquarters of the nation’s three presidential candidates, calling for improved renewable energy targets.
Starting at 7am, members of the environmental group erected billboards outside the headquarters featuring parodies of the candidates’ campaign slogans to criticize their green energy policies.
Vice President William Lai (賴清德), the Democratic Progressive Party’s presidential candidate, and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) presidential candidate and Chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) have pledged to increase the use of renewables to 30 percent of the total energy supply by 2030 in a continuation of the government’s current policy, Greenpeace Taiwan said.
Photo: Wong Yu-huang, Taipei Times
Meanwhile, a pledge by New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜), the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) presidential candidate, to achieve 27 percent renewable power by 2030 represents a downgrade, they said.
“All three candidates have released incredibly weak 2030 renewable energy targets, which are insufficient to address Taiwan’s renewable energy shortage,” Greenpeace East Asia climate and energy campaigner Lena Chang (張皪心) said.
“The soft goals undermine Taiwan’s economic competitiveness and threaten its position in the global supply chain,” Chang said.
The candidates’ unambitious green energy goals put the nation at risk of losing major business customers including Apple, which has announced a commitment to achieve 100 percent renewable energy through its supply chain by 2030, she said.
Taiwanese enterprises would “face disastrous consequences” if the nation’s renewable energy continues to lag, she said.
Demand for green energy by Taiwanese businesses is set to increase to 318 billion kilowatt-hours by 2030, or 33 times greater than all business purchases of green energy certificates in Taiwan, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said.
The protests aimed to “expose the misleading statements in the candidates’ campaign slogans,” Greenpeace Taiwan said in a news release.
The US, the EU and India have committed to achieving green energy targets that exceed 40 percent, meaning that Taiwan’s goal of 27 to 30 percent would not be enough to meet the needs of industry, it said.
TPP member Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌), a former New Power Party legislator, said it is normal in a democracy for civic groups to express their views, and candidates should give full consideration to Greenpeace’s call for sustainable development.
The government must make an effort to boost the portion of renewables in the nation’s energy structure with a strategy capable of navigating the constraints imposed by its circumstances, Huang said.
A single-person shelter built by Greenpeace members in front of Hou’s campaign headquarters briefly sparked concern from Taipei police, but officers let it be after receiving assurances from the group that they would not break into the office.
Additional reporting by Weng Yu-huang
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