Wed, Sep 01, 2021 page2

• Protesters say climate policies ‘on life support’

  • By Hsieh Chun-lin and Kayleigh Madjar / Staff reporter, with staff writer
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  Saying the nation’s climate governance is “on life support,” youth environmental groups yesterday issued an urgent call for policy reform with the goal of reaching net-zero emissions by 2045.

  A day after Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) urged the Environmental Protection Administration to mandate net-zero emissions by 2050, the Central Climate Youth Coalition and other groups held a news conference at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei, turning to music to convey the urgency of reform.

  A response to the “code red for humanity” issued by the UN last month requires more immediate action than the government has promised, the groups said.

  

  Representatives of several environmental groups from central Taiwan perform at a news conference in Taipei yesterday to urge the government to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2045, instead of 2050.

  Photo: Tu Chien-jung, Taipei Times

  As well as advancing net-zero carbon emissions to 2045, the nation should decommission all coal-fired units at the Taichung Power Plant by 2030 and include protections for vulnerable groups in its environmental policies, they said.

  With Taiwan’s climate governance “already on life support,” Su’s plan to target 2050 for net-zero emissions in an amendment to the Greenhouse Gas Reduction and Management Act (溫室氣體減量及管理法) does not show enough urgency, the coalition said.

  The government should pledge mid-term as well as long-term goals for carbon reduction, it said, suggesting a cut in emissions of at least 70 percent by 2030, 80 percent by 2035 and 90 percent by 2040, before cutting emissions entirely by 2045.

  “We cannot wait another 30 years,” it added.

  The groups also called for all 10 coal-fired generators at the Taichung Power Plant to be decommissioned by 2030, five years earlier than the legislature’s current plan and 16 years earlier than Taiwan Power Co’s proposal.

  At the same time, Formosa Plastics Group should ensure that all 16 cogeneration sets at its naphtha cracker complex in Yunlin County’s Mailiao Township (麥寮) replace coal with natural gas by 2025, they added.

  As for climate legislation, the groups called for the inclusion of an article on “climate human rights,” which should cover intergenerational justice, pluralism and social justice, with provisions protecting Aborigines, women, children and other groups particularly vulnerable to extreme weather.

  Academia Sinica data show that the average annual temperature in Taiwan has risen by 1.6°C over the past 100 years, Taichung Special Education School teacher Yueh Hsiang-wen (岳祥文) said.

  Winters are half as long, but if carbon emissions are not reduced soon, Taiwan might not have winter by 2060, he said.

  The government plans to follow international standards and aim for net-zero emissions by 2050, “but in Taiwan, where temperatures have already risen past 1.5°C, do we still have 30 years?” Yueh asked.

  Yueh’s fellow teacher Liao Li-ting (廖莉婷) said that pollution is so bad in Taichung that the city’s signature souvenir is no longer sun cakes, but lung cancer.

  The Mailiao complex in 2019 emitted 49.25 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, accounting for 19 percent of the nation’s total emissions that year, Liao said.

  The complex burns one-third less coal than is burned at the Taichung Power Plant, but the Taichung plant is the fourth-largest coal-fired power plant in the world, she said.

  “Do we really want to raise our children in such a horrible environment?” Liao asked.

  Additional reporting by Lu Yi-hui
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