PLES has hosted a Review Seminar regarding Taiwan’s policy towards Climate Change on October 26, 2012, at NTU College of Law. The seminar was hosted by Vice Principal Ching-Hua Lo, with the consciousness of the scholars, reviewed and made suggestions regarding Taiwan climate change policies.
While the abnormal climate conditions which were caused by climate change have caused damages throughout the world, Taiwan is no exception. Our government were starting to take the issues of climate change seriously, however, the recent development had been only on the level of relief work and policy propaganda while the responsible framework were unclear, and the policy does not have a long-term organization and actual measures. The foundational information research was ambiguous, and the government should really focus on the damages prevention and the adjustment of the industry in the whole picture. However, the current governmental policy had left some rooms for us to wonder.
National Taiwan University is the leading academic institute in Taiwan, and has carried academic and social responsibility for the climate change development issues. With this understanding, National Taiwan University has established PLES, hoping to coordinate a academic organization center to propose suggestions and reviews of the policies, thus pushing the awareness for the government to take climate change corresponding strategies more seriously. Professor Jiunn-rong Yeh of NTU College of Law, Professor Kuei-Tien Chou from NTU College of Social Sciences and Assistant Professor Tze-Luen Lin started from the perspectives of policy, risk investigation and urban climate change management, pointed out the deficiency and suggestion of the current climate change development in Taiwan. PLES Chief Director of Hung-Chi Kuo, Professor Jeng-Ping Chen from NTU College of Science, Ching-Pin Tung of NTU College of Bio Resources and Agriculture and NTU College of Law Associate Professor Wen-Chen Chang gathered together in the seminar, expressing their concerns and worries regarding climate change issues on behalf of National Taiwan University, urging that government should take a more overall and grounding strategies towards climate change issues.
On the policy perspectives of climate change, Professor Yeh pointed out that the corresponding strategies of Taiwan in organization, policy, and legislations seemed to be diverse, but were actually scattered, and we couldn’t feel the intense ambition and intent from the government, the strategies did not have a overall and deep consideration, thus it could not form a sufficient and efficient fundamental system. On the organization level, there should be a interdisciplinary coordinating and adjusting mechanism legislated under Executive Yuan. There should be duty committees assisting the minister of Executive Yuan to coordinate all chiefs from each department to plan and execute the strategy plan. On the policy perspective, the government should focus and move forward from GHG emission reduction and adjust the climate change policy plan accordingly, instead of pausing on mere slogans. On the legislation part, the government should bring a legislative framework for short-term correspondence, determinedly and progressively pushing the legislation in order to solve the current struggle of GHG emission reduction that has been currently stuck in the Legislation.
While our citizens’ understanding and knowledge of climate change should be what the government could handle more. Professor Chou’s research started from the points of climate change risk knowledge, the knowledge of sustainable society, risk communication, risk management, and expert politics, pointing out that our citizens have had the awareness that the climate change are the most important issues in the world. On Economic development and sustainable environment issues, people are getting to understand that they are not mutually exclusive. On the energy issues’ part, about 80 percent of the citizens were willing to pay for sustainable energy, and most of them do not support nuclear energy as the substitution. All in all, the awareness of sustainable society and the justice of the generations had risen. On the risk communication part, the research showed that there lack the risk communication; several implications of governmental risk communication were insufficient. As to risk management part, more than 70 percent of the people deemed that the government were not doing enough, and hold their trust towards the government. Generally, people believe that the enterprises did not carry the social responsibility than they currently did now. As to the expert politics perspective, there was a debate between whether we should trust and rely on the experts on this matter. But overall, the policy of climate change should be more transparent, and there should be more private participation and corporation than it is now.
While the five urban cities forming and under the circumstances of urbanization, the government should focus more on climate change urban management. Assistant Professor Lin analyzed the struggles of Taiwan climate change management from the point of view of economy, system, knowledge, politics, and culture, pointing out that there existed no independent monetary resources on economy, and there wasn’t enough human resources within this category. For example, as to the system issues, the central government and local government shared an ambiguous line between their power and duty; the climate change related bill were often postponed; there were restrictions for international cooperation, and that the adjustment coordinating mechanism were lacking in-between cities. As to the knowledge part, there were insufficient professional knowledge regarding climate change issues and the local information knowledge was also deprived. On the politics perspective, the level of priority of climate change should be higher than it is now. There should be a long-term evaluation and organization regarding its policy and should not always be limited within the issues of election strategy. On the cultural part, the consumer environmental awareness should be raised. Assistant Professor Lin suggested that, we should start from strengthening the climate change policy linkage between central government and local governments. Other methods ought to carry out are: strengthening the official communication platform, improving international cooperation, involving more interested parties, and establishing multi-level of knowledge network to solve the current urban climate change management issues.
Download the Seminar Written Report
Download PLES Climate Change Policy and Law Newsletter Vol. 1-7