Staff reporters, with staff writer
Pan-green politicians yesterday slammed Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) presidential candidate Ko Wen-je’s (柯文哲) misleading comments about COP28, after the former Taipei mayor claimed that tripling nuclear power was a consensus reached at the climate conference.
“The most important conclusion in the past few days [at COP28] is that nuclear energy should be increased three times by 2050, using 2020 as a baseline,” Ko wrote on Facebook on Tuesday.
Photo: Taipei Times file
TPP Legislator Cynthia Wu (吳欣盈), Ko’s running mate, is attending the conference in Dubai.
COP28 members pledged to triple renewable energy while a smaller group of 22 countries agreed to triple nuclear power in a bid to meet their climate targets, according to a Reuters report published on Saturday last week.
Japan was one of the countries committed to surging nuclear power despite being on the earthquake belt like Taiwan, Ko said, adding that small modular reactor technology could transform the energy sector.
Small modular reactors and extending operational nuclear plants’ service life should be part of the nation’s strategy to reach net zero carbon emissions, he said.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) on a Facebook post said: “There is nothing more shameful than using the name of science to spread lies.”
“The 110 countries attending COP 28 achieved a consensus to triple renewable energy and to double energy efficiency,” he wrote, adding: “This is not at all what Ko described.”
Tripling nuclear power by 2050 is a pledge from a minority of participants and not the “conclusion” of the entire conference, Hung said.
These countries pledged to triple nuclear power to attract international bank loans, which Ko untruthfully construed as a COP28 mandate to build nuclear plants, he said.
“This is a textbook case of spreading falsehood,” Hung said.
Vice President William Lai (賴清德), The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate, anticipated the COP 28 findings and his team has made deep energy retrofit plans to address energy waste in Taiwan, he added.
Separately, Taiwan Statebuilding Party Chairman Wang Hsing-huan (王興煥) said Ko’s claims were a misrepresentation of the facts, adding that the TPP chairman’s remarks proved that he is “irrational, unscientific and impractical” about energy policy.
Ko was an opponent of nuclear energy when he ran against the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) Ting Shou-chung (丁守中) for Taipei mayor in 2014, he said, adding that Ko at the time called the latter a “political opportunist” for flip-flopping on the issue.
Ko’s journey from being against nuclear energy to supporting it and the service extension of all operational plants in the nation showed the TPP to be “a populist party that has no guiding ideals,” Wang said.
Since the TPP issued no road map for achieving net zero, Wu’s climate conference trip was little more than an exercise in empty performative politics, he said.
Ko’s comments are irresponsible as the view that nuclear energy is a form of green energy remains disputed, said Lim Hak-yan (林學淵), the deputy secretary-general of Taiwan Environmental Protection Union.
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