Taiwan Today

Taiwan is seeking substantial involvement in the largest-scale project to fight climate change to date.

Though the devastation wrought by Typhoon Morakot in August 2009 raised concerns in Taiwan over the role of global warming in causing increasingly severe weather events, some experts believe that things could get much, much worse in the future if no action is taken to reduce emissions. According to studies performed by Wang Chung-ho, a researcher at the Academia Sinica research institution in Taipei, for example, there is a good possibility that the seas will have risen 1 meter by 2100, flooding many low-lying areas along Taiwan’s west coast, including significant parts of Kaohsiung and Taipei, the island’s two largest cities.

Similar concerns were expressed by countries around the world last December at the 15th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Copenhagen, Denmark. A total of 192 countries—nearly every nation in the world—have ratified the convention, which was one of the results of the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development. The 1992 conference was held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and the convention entered force in 1994. Because it lacks UN membership, however, Taiwan is not a signatory party to the UNFCCC and thus cannot be formally represented at the UN’s annual climate conference.

As the UNFCCC’s supreme body, the COP supervises the promotion and implementation of the convention. Since its first session in Berlin in 1995, the COP has held meetings each year in major cities around the world. In 1997 the COP 3 meeting in Japan resulted in the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol, which sets limits on greenhouse gas emissions for more industrialized or more developed countries. The COP 15 meeting in Copenhagen was intended to provide a forum for discussion of a protocol beyond 2012, when Kyoto is due to expire.

As it cannot send an official representative to COP events, beginning with the Berlin meeting in 1995 Taiwan has sent a team led by the quasi-official Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), the largest research and development organization in Taiwan. Representatives from the Republic of China (ROC) government’s environment, agriculture and economic ministries and other government units, as well as a couple of nonprofit groups, have also joined the team. For the Copenhagen meeting, Taiwan’s delegation of about 100 members from the public and private sectors was led by ITRI executive vice president Chu Hsin-sen, with Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) Deputy Minister Chiau Wen-yan serving as chief councilor. Among other events the Taiwan delegation took part in, Chu was invited by the International Emissions Trading Association to give a speech on renewable energy targets at a prominent hotel near the UNFCCC’s main venue.

Global Framework

In the meantime, Taiwan is seeking more substantial involvement in the global framework of environmental and industrial agreements and controls as a result of growing concerns over the threat presented by climate change. Instead of pursuing full UN membership, which is unlikely to be granted at present because of the political realities of Taiwan’s relationship with mainland China, the ROC government’s efforts have turned to the more practical goal of gaining official participation in the UN’s specialized agencies and working groups, including the International Civil Aviation Organization and the UNFCCC. An example of the success of this approach came in May 2009, when, after more than a decade of seeking observer status in the World Health Assembly (WHA) of the World Health Organization, another major UN specialized agency, Taiwan was invited to attend the WHA as an observer under the name of Chinese Taipei. This landmark development of Taiwan gaining an official presence in an international organization offers great encouragement as Taiwan seeks to play a greater role in the UNFCCC.

According to Article 7 of the UNFCCC, observers of any other UN agency that are not official parties to the convention may participate in COP sessions as observers. Any governmental or non-governmental body or agency qualified in matters covered by the convention can inform the secretariat of its wish to be represented at a COP session and may be admitted as an observer, unless one-third or more of the parties participating are opposed. Currently, there are four observer states—Andorra, the Holy See, Iraq and Somalia—to the UNFCCC, and Taiwan is working to acquire a similar status in the COP in the near future.

Robert Yang, current senior advisor and former executive vice president of ITRI, points out that the government’s bid for COP observer status hinges on UN organizational procedures and rules, as well as improved cross-strait understanding with mainland China. Yang believes it is crucial for Taiwan’s security to handle cross-strait policies in a pragmatic, efficient manner. “The government can include the UNFCCC bid as a priority issue in major cross-strait mechanisms such as talks between the Straits Exchange Foundation and the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait,” he says. “Meanwhile, the public and private sectors should put more effort into learning about and understanding how the UN system works.”

Yang believes that such a fundamental, measured approach, combined with international support, would help ensure Taiwan’s ability to participate in another international organization along with the WHA. “The WHA case has given us a stronger expectation that general goodwill toward our participation will be extended, both from across the strait and from countries around the world,” he says.

Yang believes that it would be immensely unfair for Taiwan to be excluded from the COP, UNFCCC and resulting protocols, as they represent the vanguard of the international effort to combat climate change and prevent resultant environmental disasters. He points out that Taiwan’s geography and weather patterns make the island particularly vulnerable to climate change. Taiwan’s location at the junction of two major tectonic plates results in frequent earthquakes, which loosen surface soil on steep slopes. When torrential rainfall that accompanies typhoons in summer and fall hits these vulnerable areas, the result can be devastating mudslides. Yang notes that Taiwan needs to gain access to long-term, stable international resources through the UNFCCC framework to better prepare for, avoid and reduce the possible damage of such natural disasters.

Alice Wang, deputy minister of the Government Information Office (GIO), also expresses concern regarding the climate-related challenges that face Taiwan. “Climate change is a serious issue that confronts every single one of us,” Wang said during a recent Taiwan-Denmark videoconference organized by the GIO on Taiwan’s bid for UNFCCC participation. The conference was hosted by Anne Grete Holmsgaard, a member of the Danish parliament and the opposition Socialist People’s Party’s spokeswoman for climate policies.

“Climate change is responsible for rising temperatures, extreme weather conditions, unpredictable storms and loss of biodiversity. As a small island, Taiwan is especially vulnerable to these threats,” Wang notes. Holmsgaard said in the videoconference that she hoped to see Taiwan repeat its success in attaining observer status in the WHA by becoming a COP observer.

As an example of the climate threats Taiwan faces, Wang cites Typhoon Morakot, which caused flooding and mudslides that resulted in hundreds of deaths and massive damage in southern Taiwan in August 2009. More than 1,000 millimeters of rain fell in a single day during Morakot, while some of the hardest-hit areas received a four-day total of nearly 3,000 millimeters. Taiwan normally sees no more than 2,500 millimeters of rain on the plains and up to 4,000 millimeters in mountainous areas in an entire year.

Morakot’s extreme rainfall also fits Taiwan’s climatic trend of receiving more annual rainfall but experiencing fewer total rainy days, a problem compounded by the island’s precipitous mountains and small land area, which makes it particularly susceptible to flooding. The pattern of heavier but less frequent rainfall is also expected to become more extreme if temperatures continue rising around the world. “We are very much aware of the destructive power of climate change and we must face this challenge swiftly,” Wang says. “We urge the UNFCCC to heed the needs of our people, recognize the contributions Taiwan can make and find appropriate means to accept our participation as early as possible.”

EPA Minister Shen Shu-hung said during the GIO videoconference that the serious threat posed by climate change has led Taiwan to seek participation in the meetings and activities of the UNFCCC and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which was set up in 1988 by the UN Environment Programme and the World Meteorological Organization. “However, Taiwan’s wish has yet to come true because of its unique political situation,” Shen says, adding that there is a need for greater international awareness of Taiwan’s attempts to more effectively combat the impact of climate change through substantial, official participation in the UNFCCC and IPCC.

Shen points out that the government has actively sought to manage pressing environmental challenges through legislation such as the draft Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction Act, which was authored by the EPA and is currently under review in the Legislative Yuan. Among other things, the draft sets greenhouse gas emission standards and specifies penalties for violators. Furthermore, according to sustainable energy policy guidelines passed by the Executive Yuan in June 2008, Taiwan’s CO2 emissions should be reduced to the 2008 level from 2016 to 2020 and to the 2000 level by 2025. The EPA’s longer-term emissions goal is for Taiwan to discharge just half the 2000 level of CO2 emissions by 2050. Currently ranked 21st in the world in terms of total volume of CO2 emissions, Taiwan is determined to fulfill obligations such as reducing these emissions in line with its position as a responsible member of the global village.

In July 2009, environmental policymaking received a boost when the Renewable Energy Development Act was promulgated to offer subsidies, relaxed restrictions on land use and other incentives for businesses that generate electricity from renewable sources including solar energy, biofuels, geothermal energy, ocean energy, wind power and hydropower. The government has also targeted the green energy industry as one of Taiwan’s six flagship industries to be promoted for future development. According to an action plan by the Ministry of Economic Affairs, a budget of around NT$37 billion (US$1.12 billion) will be devoted to the development of the green energy industry from 2009 to 2012, with major focuses on solar energy, electric vehicles and LED lighting. As a whole, the industry’s production value is expected to rise from NT$160.3 billion (US$5.09 billion) in 2008 to NT$415.5 billion (US$12.59 billion) in 2012 and then to NT$1.158 trillion (US$35.09 billion) in 2015, when it will account for 6.6 percent of Taiwan’s total manufacturing production value.

“We have set the goals, but it’s not enough,” ITRI’s Robert Yang says of the government’s environmental targets. “Taiwan has to take real action to assume our responsibilities in the international community.”

Write to Pat Gao at kotsijin@gmail.com