Thu, Aug 08, 2024 page3

• Regulations are hindering wind power, NGOs warn

  • By Chen Chia-yi and William Hetherington / Staff reporter, with staff writer
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  Members of several environmental non-governmental organizations (NGOs) focused on combating climate change yesterday called on the government to revise regulations affecting the development of offshore wind power.

  The government should foster the development of sustainable energy, including by revising policies hindering offshore wind power development, particularly given the increasing power needs of Taiwan’s high-tech industries, the members told a news conference in Taipei yesterday.

  The Presidential Office’s National Climate Change Response Committee is to hold its first meeting today.

  

  Members of several environmental groups hold placards and chant slogans at a news conference at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei yesterday.

  Photo: Tu Chien-de, Taipei Times

  The NGO members said they hoped the issue of sustainable energy development would be addressed at the meeting.

  “While the government supports the development of the power-intensive AI and semiconductor industries, it should also require such industries to increase the proportion of renewable energy they use,” Taiwan Renewable Energy Alliance founder Kao Ju-ping (高茹萍) said.

  “It should require companies to disclose the amount of green energy they use, and require them to fulfill their corporate social responsibilities,” he said.

  The government should investigate the shortcomings of the country’s renewable energy sector, Kao said.

  “Recently, the EU has complained to the WTO that Taiwan’s offshore wind power policies overprotect the domestic industry,” he said, adding that the situation caused wind-farm developers to withdraw from Taiwan.

  This proved that Taiwan’s energy woes were due to policy problems, and therefore would not be solved even if the country relied on nuclear power, he said.

  Taiwan’s emissions reduction target for 2030 is 24 percent, which is far behind the international standard of 43 percent, Taiwan Citizen Participation Association director-general Ho Tsung-hsun (何宗勳) said.

  The committee should propose more aggressive emissions reduction objectives, he said, adding that the issue of environmental justice should be taken more seriously.

  “Taiwan Power Co [Taipower] once promised to relocate nuclear waste on Orchid Island (蘭嶼, Lanyu), but more than 20 years later it still has not done so,” he said.

  Those living on Taiwan’s outlying islands often bear the brunt of climate disasters, despite producing very little of the country’s emissions, Penghu’s Citizens of the Ocean Foundation chairman Hu Chao-an (胡昭安) said.

  For example, last month’s typhoon caused extensive flooding and damage on Orchid Island and elsewhere in southern Taiwan, he said.

  He called on Lai to implement climate change adaptation and response measures for vulnerable areas, calling it a “national security issue.”

  “Enterprises must also take responsibility for carbon reduction,” he said. “They cannot just write beautiful sustainability reports on the one hand, and on the other hand secretly obstruct the collection of carbon fees and rational adjustment of electricity prices.”
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