Environmental groups yesterday voiced qualified support for an increase in electricity rates, saying that a price hike could boost the energy efficiency of Taiwanese industries and help them achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050.
Electricity rates must reflect real energy costs, a coalition of 12 groups — including the Green Citizens’ Action Alliance, Citizens of the Earth, Taiwan, and the Taiwan Climate Action Network — said in a joint statement before the government announced rate hikes later in the day.
Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) earlier that day started the review process for a proposed 15 percent increase in industrial electricity prices and a 10 percent increase in residential electricity prices.
Photo: CNA
Taipower has incurred accumulated losses of NT$380 billion (US$11.89 billion) in the past two years, due largely to soaring gas and oil prices amid Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, they said.
The International Energy Agency in 2022 reported that the various forms of subsidies Taiwan provided related to fossil energy were worth five times more than the previous year.
A continued failure to adjust electricity prices in these circumstances would negatively affect Taiwan’s push to reach net zero emmissions, its fight against air pollution and the financial viability of Taipower, the groups added.
“Certain individuals have repeatedly made misleading statements that blame the anti-nuclear power movement and renewables for the [proposed] electricity rate hike,” they said. “These statements misguide the public and prevent constructive policy discussions.”
Claims from Taiwanese industries that increased electricity rates would cause them to relocate are exaggerated, as Taiwan boasted the world’s third-lowest industrial electricity prices in 2022, behind South Korea and China, they said.
Electric bills account for just 2.1 percent of the Taiwanese manufacturing sector’s total business expenditures, meaning the proposed hike would increase production costs by 0.9 percent, the groups added.
“We urge large enterprises to review and improve the energy efficiency of their operations instead of obsessing over electricity prices, which would contribute to Taiwan’s transformation to a net zero economy,” they said.
The government should be prepared to deal with the effects of higher residential electricity costs on low-income families and the price of necessities, and strengthen progressive electricity purchasing to counter inequality, the groups said.
Subsidies for energy-efficient household appliances, smart electricity meters and heat-regulating architecture should be utilized to change the public’s energy consumption patterns, they added.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching