The government continues to spout slogans about global warming, the impending energy crisis, energy savings and how to cut carbon emissions. However, ask what President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) energy policy is and government officials are unlikely to have an answer.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs’ Bureau of Energy recently proposed instructions for a revaluation of energy development guidelines as required by the Energy Management Law (能源管理法), with the objective of drafting a coherent energy policy for the next decade. These instructions suggested two solutions: decommissioning nuclear power reactors and increasing the number of coal-fired power plants to meet basic needs or the continued use of nuclear reactors, in conjunction with the expansion of coal-fired power plants. The bureau recommended the second solution.
This has drawn criticism from environmental protection groups. Limited storage of fossil fuels in recent years has set prices skyrocketing, causing many countries to look for ways to reduce their dependence on fossil fuels by promoting renewable energy sources such as wind, water and solar power.
In light of this, environment protection groups have criticized the government, saying its energy policies are too conservative and designed to protect the interests of the nuclear and coal-fired power industries.
Not long ago, the solar power sector protested against a sudden reversal in government procurement policy for solar-generated electricity, a decision that could spell serious trouble for private sector investment.
Having concluded that the prices offered by privately operated power plants are much higher than for power generated at Taipower’s coal-fired and nuclear power plants, the government said it would stop buying their energy in order to cut costs.
However, the cost of solar and wind-generated electricity is high worldwide, making them not commercially viable at the moment. Governments are willing to pay a premium because they want to encourage the use of non-fossil fuels and prop up those industries until they become commercially viable. Taipei’s sudden decision is short-sighted and did nothing but protect traditional energy interests.
More importantly, the Ma administration’s energy policy is not a stand-alone policy, it is closely interwoven with the national industrial development strategy. If the government continues to promote high-pollution, high-energy consumption industries, such as the petrochemical and steel industries, then energy demand will continue to grow, the life of the third nuclear power plant will be extended, the fourth nuclear power plant will be built and coal-fired power plants will be expanded.
If, however, the government reviews industrial transformation and groups together high tech and high value-added industries with the cultural, creative and service industries as the businesses of the future, then it could be possible to limit the increase in energy demand or even possibly reduce it.
If the bureau fails to consider the nation’s industrial future, the likely outcome is increased energy consumption.
Ma often repeats a slogan on saving energy and cutting carbon emissions, and has promised that Taiwan will respect the Kyoto Protocol and any emission reduction agreements agreed at future international environmental conferences.
Despite this, the current report contains no commitments to live up to the Kyoto Protocol. If Ma really does think the environment, energy saving and carbon emission cuts are important, he should call a national energy conference so that concerned organizations can draw up action plans that promote sustainable environmental protection.
Monday was the 37th anniversary of former president Chiang Ching-kuo’s (蔣經國) death. Chiang — a son of former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), who had implemented party-state rule and martial law in Taiwan — has a complicated legacy. Whether one looks at his time in power in a positive or negative light depends very much on who they are, and what their relationship with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is. Although toward the end of his life Chiang Ching-kuo lifted martial law and steered Taiwan onto the path of democratization, these changes were forced upon him by internal and external pressures,
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) has caused havoc with his attempts to overturn the democratic and constitutional order in the legislature. If we look at this devolution from the context of a transition to democracy from authoritarianism in a culturally Chinese sense — that of zhonghua (中華) — then we are playing witness to a servile spirit from a millennia-old form of totalitarianism that is intent on damaging the nation’s hard-won democracy. This servile spirit is ingrained in Chinese culture. About a century ago, Chinese satirist and author Lu Xun (魯迅) saw through the servile nature of
In their New York Times bestseller How Democracies Die, Harvard political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt said that democracies today “may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders. Many government efforts to subvert democracy are ‘legal,’ in the sense that they are approved by the legislature or accepted by the courts. They may even be portrayed as efforts to improve democracy — making the judiciary more efficient, combating corruption, or cleaning up the electoral process.” Moreover, the two authors observe that those who denounce such legal threats to democracy are often “dismissed as exaggerating or
The National Development Council (NDC) on Wednesday last week launched a six-month “digital nomad visitor visa” program, the Central News Agency (CNA) reported on Monday. The new visa is for foreign nationals from Taiwan’s list of visa-exempt countries who meet financial eligibility criteria and provide proof of work contracts, but it is not clear how it differs from other visitor visas for nationals of those countries, CNA wrote. The NDC last year said that it hoped to attract 100,000 “digital nomads,” according to the report. Interest in working remotely from abroad has significantly increased in recent years following improvements in
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