Government officials and academics yesterday urged the power industry, environmental groups and government agencies to consolidate the fight against greenhouse gas emissions, suggesting policy be modeled on Germany and South Korea.
“We have to rapidly lay the framework for our nation’s sustainable development by re-focusing our efforts to aid the environment,” Environmental Protection Administration Minister (EPA) Stephen Shen (沈世宏) told industry professionals, professors and government officials from various energy, environmental and foreign affairs departments at a conference.
It was held prior to the departure of a delegation for the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Copenhagen.
The meeting will likely result in concrete initiatives on global emissions trading and further pledges of reductions, analysts said.
Shen said that Taiwan was at a “pivotal transition phase.”
President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) pledge to reduce carbon emissions to 50 percent of 2025’s levels by 2050 was criticized by analysts for lacking concrete initiatives.
However, Yang Jih-Chang (楊日昌), the former Executive Vice President of the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), said government policy could modeled on that of regional competitors such as South Korea and China, who have put into place a “top-down approach” to environmental policy.
“We need reduction policies that are broader in scope and to use them as an engine for economic growth ... in the [global green economy] that is estimated to be worth US$10.5 trillion in the next 20 years,” Yang said, adding he believed the South Korean government’s promise of large investments in the industry was a right one.
An analysis by the bank HSBC, showed that more than 80 percent of South Korea’s US$38 billion stimulus package has been earmarked for green projects and investments.
Industry representatives, however, called for a more careful approach, to avoid the possibility of an adverse reaction in a struggling economy caused by hastily put together policies.
“Government agencies should communicate with business leaders before deciding on environmental policies which might eventually become law,” said Hsu Fang-ming (許芳銘), a representative from the Taiwan-based Chinese National Federation of Industries.
Researchers said the government needed to hasten its implementation of green initiatives and called the legislature’s delay in passing the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Act (溫室氣體減量法) “a failure to acknowledge the gravity of the problem.”
Professor Fan Chien-te (范建德) from National Tsing Hua University called on the government to create clear and ambitious targets for the act.
“Germany has had clearly defined emission reduction targets ... renewable energy now accounts for 18 percent of its total, it is also on course to deliver on 40 percent reductions of its 1990 level within the next decade ... meanwhile, what have we done?” Fan asked.
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