The wildfires ravaging Los Angeles have killed at least 24 people, displaced 180,000 and scorched about 160km2 — an inferno driven by fierce winds and severe drought in what should be California’s wet season. It is a sobering reminder that the climate crisis is driving wildfires to become more frequent, intense and destructive — leaving ruined lives, homes and livelihoods in their wake.
US President Joe Biden responded by mobilizing federal aid. By contrast US president-elect Donald Trump, a convicted felon who was criminally sentenced on Friday, used the disaster to spread disinformation and stoke political division.
The climate crisis knows no national borders. Deadly floods in Spain, Hawaii’s fires and east Africa’s devastating drought show that nowhere is safe from its effects. Countries must work toward the global common interest and beyond their narrow national interests. The scale of the climate emergency is such that there is a case to view all crises through a green lens.
Instead Trump’s denialism works to foment distrust about the science. He is not just aiming to delay the onset of truth. He wants to demolish it.
It is a familiar playbook: The fossil fuel industry knows the reality of the climate emergency, but chooses profit over responsibility, effectively deceiving the public while the planet burns.
The perils of weaponizing doubt should be painfully clear in the week when scientists said last year was the first to pass the symbolic 1.5°C warming threshold, as well as the world’s hottest on record.
Trump’s politicization of climate denial has supercharged it, turning skepticism into a badge of identity.
When denial becomes ideological, facts turn irrelevant. That makes concerted climate action much harder to achieve.
Trump’s return to power will not halt the US’ path to decarbonization, but it will slow it disastrously. An analysis by Carbon Brief in August last year estimated that his return could add 4 billion tonnes of US carbon emissions by 2030 compared with Democrat plans — inflicting US$900 billion in global climate damage.
To grasp its scale, the emissions surge would equal the combined annual output of the EU and Japan, or the emissions of the world’s 140 lowest-emitting countries.
Confronting the climate emergency demands more than facts; it requires dismantling the political machinery that breeds denialism. The link between the current model of economic growth and the depth of environmental collapse is undeniable. Yet in the face of the overwhelming evidence, too many on the political right cling to denial or place blind faith in the free market.
This is an age of “hyper agency” — where billionaires, rogue states and corporations wield almost unchecked power, fueling climate chaos and global instability. The mechanisms meant to hold power to account are being dismantled with ruinous consequences. Without urgent action, the next disaster will not be a warning. It will be irreversible.
While not much can be expected from Trump, the European “green deal” is too small to plug this year’s projected shortfall in private investment, let alone meet EU commitments under the Paris climate agreement. Climate denialism ought to be confronted with bold policies; business must be held accountable for its role in this crisis; and voters need to see through the rightwing populist parties who prioritize profit over the planet.
The next catastrophe is not a distant threat, it is already in motion. Only immediate and determined action can stop global heating from becoming humanity’s undoing.
The US Department of Defense recently released this year’s “Report on Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China.” This annual report provides a comprehensive overview of China’s military capabilities, strategic objectives and evolving global ambitions. Taiwan features prominently in this year’s report, as capturing the nation remains central to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) vision of the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,” a goal he has set for 2049. The report underscores Taiwan’s critical role in China’s long-term strategy, highlighting its significance as a geopolitical flashpoint and a key target in China’s quest to assert dominance
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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Following a series of suspected sabotage attacks by Chinese vessels on undersea cables in the Baltic Sea last year, which impacted Europe’s communications and energy infrastructure, an international undersea cable off the coast of Yehliu (野柳) near Keelung was on Friday last week cut by a Chinese freighter. Four cores of the international submarine communication cable connecting Taiwan and the US were damaged. The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) dispatched a ship to the site after receiving a report from Chunghwa Telecom and located the Shunxin-39, a Cameroon-flagged cargo ship operated by a Hong Kong-registered company and owned by a Chinese
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