The historic UN climate talks in Copenhagen have good intentions, yet set a perfect example of how an indecisive assembly can end up being eco-unfriendly.
Developed countries should feel duty-bound to ease concerns raised by developing countries at the summit and show a firm commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. Otherwise the summit will collapse and the divide between developed and developing countries will grow even wider.
Unfortunately, it seems very unlikely that a new climate change deal enabling a concerted effort to fight global warming will be struck before the summit ends on Friday.
Nevertheless, the Copenhagen talks have shed some light on the urgency with which the world must deal with its inerasable carbon footprint. Alternative and clean energy sources will provide the best solution, and the world is already starting to feel the pinch, which should spur some delegates into action.
That bodes well for Taiwanese high-tech industries, some of which have invested in the solar energy sector — particularly solar panels and batteries — for more than a decade and the light-emitting-diode (LED) industry for almost three decades. Hit by the global recession, the local LED industry may suffer a 6 percent decline in total output value to NT$50.8 billion (US$1.6 billion) this year — still the world’s second-largest, after Japan — from NT$53.9 billion last year, according to the Industrial Technology Research Institute’s Industrial Economics and Knowledge Center.
As more countries, including Taiwan, start to replace traditional street lamps with energy-saving LEDs, a replacement wave may soon be triggered.
The nation’s solar energy industry is growing quickly and is expected to reach an output value of NT$450 billion in 2015 from NT$101.1 billion last year and NT$53.5 billion in 2007, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council has said.
The potential of solar batteries is burgeoning, and can only grow as breakthroughs are made in creating cheaper batteries with shorter charging times, increased capacity and longer life cycles.
Rechargeable lithium-iron batteries — a newer kind of battery used to harness solar energy — may be the answer for now, although further technological innovations are likely to follow.
As a local lithium-iron battery manufacturer put it: “With the revolutionary lithium-iron batteries, which are highly efficient in power storage, Taiwan can help replace existing power grids anywhere in the world.”
It is in such a world that business opportunities will emerge for local companies, enabling Taiwan to give something back to the international community. This is all the more important given that Taiwan’s progress in cutting emissions this year deteriorated to 47th among 57 countries with the world’s largest carbon dioxide emissions, the latest Climate Change Performance Index showed.
Cost will be another major concern. Unless consumers fully commit to energy-saving products to spur demand, it will be difficult to reduce manufacturing costs to make them more affordable.
So those shopping for electronic gadgets should pay extra attention to energy-saving features, for the sake of saving money and the environment.
US aerospace company Boeing Co has in recent years been involved in numerous safety incidents, including crashes of its 737 Max airliners, which have caused widespread concern about the company’s safety record. It has recently come to light that titanium jet engine parts used by Boeing and its European competitor Airbus SE were sold with falsified documentation. The source of the titanium used in these parts has been traced back to an unknown Chinese company. It is clear that China is trying to sneak questionable titanium materials into the supply chain and use any ensuing problems as an opportunity to
It’s not every month that the US Department of State sends two deputy assistant secretary-level officials to Taiwan, together. Its rarer still that such senior State Department policy officers, once on the ground in Taipei, make a point of huddling with fellow diplomats from “like-minded” NATO, ANZUS and Japanese governments to coordinate their multilateral Taiwan policies. The State Department issued a press release on June 22 admitting that the two American “representatives” had “hosted consultations in Taipei” with their counterparts from the “Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs.” The consultations were blandly dubbed the “US-Taiwan Working Group on International Organizations.” The State
The Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercises, the largest naval exercise in the region, are aimed at deepening international collaboration and interaction while strengthening tactical capabilities and flexibility in tackling maritime crises. China was invited to participate in RIMPAC in 2014 and 2016, but it was excluded this year. The underlying reason is that Beijing’s ambitions of regional expansion and challenging the international order have raised global concern. The world has made clear its suspicions of China, and its exclusion from RIMPAC this year will bring about a sea change in years to come. The purpose of excluding China is primarily
The Chinese Supreme People’s Court and other government agencies released new legal guidelines criminalizing “Taiwan independence diehard separatists.” While mostly symbolic — the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has never had jurisdiction over Taiwan — Tamkang University Graduate Institute of China Studies associate professor Chang Wu-ueh (張五岳), an expert on cross-strait relations, said: “They aim to explain domestically how they are countering ‘Taiwan independence,’ they aim to declare internationally their claimed jurisdiction over Taiwan and they aim to deter Taiwanese.” Analysts do not know for sure why Beijing is propagating these guidelines now. Under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), deciphering the