Greenpeace yesterday urged the Cabinet’s National Climate Change Committee to discuss strategies for addressing “climate inflation.”
Greenpeace East Asia climate and energy campaigner Lydia Fang (方君維) told a news conference in Taipei that climate change seriously affects the world economy, while “climate inflation” impacts are increasing yearly.
Greenpeace’s survey showed that the cost of food ingredients sold during the Mid-Autumn Festival has increased by nearly 40 percent in the past decade, Fang said.
Photo: Chen Yi-kuan, Taipei Times
The government should acknowledge that solving climate change can slow down inflation, she said, urging President William Lai’s (賴清德) National Climate Change Committee to make “climate inflation” a priority agenda in developing climate strategies.
Short-term strategies should include “climate change compensation” to help people cope with economic losses and damage from natural disasters caused by climate change, which would help reduce the effects on more vulnerable groups, such as children, older people and low-income households, Fang said.
The mid to long-term strategies should include a “net zero investment bill” to fund the purchase of renewable energy power generation equipment by individuals or companies, she said.
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child’s General Comment No. 26, passed last year, has a special focus on climate change, recognizing that children have a right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Lin Yue-chin (林月琴) told the news conference.
The document also states that governments must take all necessary, appropriate and reasonable measures to protect against climate change-related harms to children’s rights that are caused or perpetuated by businesses, and to ensure that corporations rapidly reduce their emissions, she said.
Lin said she would ask the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics to consider those issues when formulating policies, so that the next generation does not face unlivable conditions and a rapidly growing gap between the rich and the poor due to climate change.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Huang Chien-pin (黃建賓) said that climate change has had a serious effect on agriculture in Taitung County, limiting output and the stability of prices.
“We indeed need to think carefully about what kind of environment we want to leave for our next generations,” he said.
KMT Legislator Jonathan Lin (林沛祥) said that a phrase he heard during an international conference he attended last year had stuck with him: “Climate change and global warming would not destroy the world, but would cause human extinction.”
Climate change not only causes rising sea levels, but also practical food issues, he said, adding that usually crabs can be harvested in Keelung or along the northern coast around the Mid-Autumn Festival, but now they can only be found after October, and the harvest amount and quality have fallen.
“Net zero emissions is the only path forward, and going against nature would only harm humans,” he said.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday said it had deployed patrol vessels to expel a China Coast Guard ship and a Chinese fishing boat near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. The China Coast Guard vessel was 28 nautical miles (52km) northeast of Pratas at 6:15am on Thursday, approaching the island’s restricted waters, which extend 24 nautical miles from its shoreline, the CGA’s Dongsha-Nansha Branch said in a statement. The Tainan, a 2,000-tonne cutter, was deployed by the CGA to shadow the Chinese ship, which left the area at 2:39pm on Friday, the statement said. At 6:31pm on Friday,
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy’s (PLAN) third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, would pose a steep challenge to Taiwan’s ability to defend itself against a full-scale invasion, a defense expert said yesterday. Institute of National Defense and Security Research analyst Chieh Chung (揭仲) made the comment hours after the PLAN confirmed the carrier recently passed through the Taiwan Strait to conduct “scientific research tests and training missions” in the South China Sea. China has two carriers in operation — the Liaoning and the Shandong — with the Fujian undergoing sea trials. Although the PLAN needs time to train the Fujian’s air wing and
Taiwanese celebrities Hank Chen (陳漢典) and Lulu Huang (黃路梓茵) announced yesterday that they are planning to marry. Huang announced and posted photos of their engagement to her social media pages yesterday morning, joking that the pair were not just doing marketing for a new show, but “really getting married.” “We’ve decided to spend all of our future happy and hilarious moments together,” she wrote. The announcement, which was later confirmed by the talent agency they share, appeared to come as a surprise even to those around them, with veteran TV host Jacky Wu (吳宗憲) saying he was “totally taken aback” by the news. Huang,
The American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) put Taiwan in danger, Ma Ying-jeou Foundation director Hsiao Hsu-tsen (蕭旭岑) said yesterday, hours after the de facto US embassy said that Beijing had misinterpreted World War II-era documents to isolate Taiwan. The AIT’s comments harmed the Republic of China’s (ROC) national interests and contradicted a part of the “six assurances” stipulating that the US would not change its official position on Taiwan’s sovereignty, Hsiao said. The “six assurances,” which were given by then-US president Ronald Reagan to Taiwan in 1982, say that Washington would not set a date for ending arm sales to Taiwan, consult
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