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.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
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