Diplomacy

Green Opportunity

• Byline:JIM HWANG
• Publication Date:09/01/2007

A photo call for the 2006 APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting held in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi. Member economies have all recognized the pressure that growing energy consumption is putting on the environment. (Photo by Hao Chen-tai)

Taiwan has made significant efforts in developing clean energy and can help its APEC fellow economies deal with climate change issues.

On September 8, the Economic Leaders' Meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum is scheduled to take place in Sydney, Australia. Six months prior to the summit, Australian Prime Minister John Howard, under this year's theme "Strengthening our Community, Building a Sustainable Future," wrote to all APEC leaders, setting clean development and climate change as a focus of discussion.

Member economies of APEC have long recognized energy as crucial to furthering the region's economic development. In 1996, when the first APEC energy ministers' meeting was held--also in Sydney--the focus, under the theme "Energy: Our Region, Our Future," was on meeting APEC's rapidly increasing energy demands to ensure that the region's economic growth potential could be realized. In addition, it was also recognized by member economies that growth in energy supplies would place pressure on the environment locally, regionally and globally.

Energy demand has been increasing in recent years and APEC's 21 member economies are now responsible for 60 percent of the world's total energy demand. Also increasing has been the impact on the environment, as some APEC members have been or are becoming the world's worst polluters. Given that the scientific consensus linking climate change to the emission of greenhouse gases as a result of the burning of fossil fuels is now irrefutable, APEC members need to think seriously about how they might meet their ever increasing energy needs whilst avoiding increasing climate change. To deal with this issue, energy officials from all APEC economies meet twice a year at APEC Energy Working Group meetings, and the private sector has been invited to participate in these meetings through a parallel organization, the APEC Energy Business Network. On-going projects include collecting energy statistics, environmental monitoring and research on promoting energy efficiency and renewable energy.

In the meeting this month, Taiwan plans to propose a "Green APEC Opportunity Initiative" that will include the hosting of a Green APEC Conference as a platform for member economies to share their experiences and engage in dialogue, and a Green APEC Clean Development Exhibition where member economies can showcase their green products and technologies and seeking opportunities for cooperation.

Taiwan became an APEC member under the name of Chinese Taipei in November 1991. Like most other member economies, Taiwan relies heavily on imported energy and its primary interest has been in securing a steady supply. Environmental factors did not feature prominently until the 1990s when the government made explicit its interest in establishing clean and efficient energy supplies and promoting renewable energy. By cultivating alternative resources such as biomass, solar and wind power generation, Taiwan aims to replace 10 percent of its total energy supply with renewable sources by 2010 and help reduce the island's carbon dioxide emission to the 2000 level by 2020.

Using Renewables

To meet these goals, the Taiwan government offers a number of incentives to encourage the participation of the private sector and ordinary people, such as paying for up to 50 percent of the installation costs of systems using these kinds of energy. Some renewable resources, though still small-scale, are already up and running. The Shihmen wind plant, Taiwan's first commercial plant operated by the Taiwan Power Co. (Taipower), started running in late 2004. According to Taipower, the wind turbines can replace some 3,820 tonnes of fuel coal and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 8,600 tonnes a year. A new plant in Linkou built by a private company is scheduled for operation in 2008. Its seven power-generating units will supply clean energy to 14,000 households in the area. According to the Bureau of Energy under the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Taiwan's 103 wind power units have reduced greenhouse gas production by 250,000 tonnes a year.

The sun is also a potential energy source. Currently, more than 380,000 households in Taiwan have installed solar water heaters, and the total area covered by solar panels today is 1.53 million square meters, reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 336,000 tonnes a year.

Some government buildings, including the Tainan County Government office and the Office of the President, have been using a photovoltaic system as part of their lighting. Such a system is currently on an experimental basis, but technological advances are likely to lift energy conservation efficiency and bring down production cost. The Institute of Nuclear Energy Research--a government research organization--has been releasing the results of its research into high-concentration photovoltaic products to private manufacturers. The institute estimates that the production costs for high-concentration photovoltaic cells will be competitive with traditional fuels by 2015, and Taiwanese products will grab a tenth of the global market by 2010.

Importance of Conservation

Shifting from carbon dioxide-producing to clean energy is time-consuming and costly. A quicker route to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions is to boost energy conservation. Taiwan started promoting voluntary reduction of carbon dioxide emissions among local enterprises in 2005. And to encourage energy-efficient products, an Energy Label system for products boasting 10 to 15 percent higher energy efficiency was issued. Currently, more than 1,000 products, ranging from scooters and cars to washing machines and hair dryers, have received this label. Consumers can easily find manufacturers and distributors from the Energy Label Web site.

 

The Shihmen wind plant has replaced coal-fired electric generators that would have produced 8,600 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. (Photo by Huang Chung-hsin)

The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) has also cooperated with the United States' Environmental Protection Agency on the Energy Star project--an international standard for energy-efficient electronic equipment. Energy Star was initiated in the U.S. in 1992 and has become increasingly recognized internationally. By the end of last year, 326 products from 28 manufacturers in Taiwan had earned the Energy Star label. According to the EPA, using such appliances can save electricity that would create 5,300 tonnes of carbon dioxide to produce.

With all these measures, however, Taiwan is still far from actually reducing its greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, while Taiwan is only responsible for 1 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions, its per capita emission is four times the global average. The Kyoto Protocol, which has become a general guide for emissions reductions, set the goal that industrialized countries should collectively reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases by 5.2 percent from the 1990 level between 2008 and 2012. Although Taiwan is excluded from signing the protocol, it is eagerly adhering to the standards as a responsible member of the international community. But Kyoto has not been ratified by a number of industrialized countries such as Australia and the United States, and its projected goals have proved to be unreachable for most of its signatories.

Taiwan has also been attempting to set its own goals. Last May, the legislature passed the first reading of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Act, which stipulates that the annual volume of greenhouse gas emissions should be reduced to 2005 levels of 250 million tonnes by 2025 to 2030. The framing of tough legislation shows a rising awareness of the importance of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Minister of Economic Affairs Steve Chen, however, admits that the goal is very difficult to achieve, as local carbon dioxide emissions increase by an estimated 4 million tonnes per year even without major construction projects being underway. He told the press that if the government enforces the act before related policies bear fruit, companies might be forced to downsize or relocate to other countries, which would be bad for jobs and the economy as a whole.

Why No Targets?

Taiwan is not alone in this and, for all the talk of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, few governments have committed themselves to rigorous targets. Indeed for APEC this is regarded as premature. When APEC energy ministers met in Darwin in May, they concluded with the release of the Darwin Declaration. The declaration features an agreement to improve energy efficiency through a range of measures. It also looks at developing best practices as regards energy efficient transportation, intensifying efforts to develop and deploy techniques for the cost-effective use of non-food feedstocks and encouraging international collaboration on alternative fuels. The ministers, however, did not set--or even try to set--any targets for cutting greenhouse emissions. "The challenge at the moment is not to set targets. It is to actually have the technology to achieve targets," Ian MacFarlane, Australian Industry Minister and chair of the meeting, said to the press. "Once we know how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the challenge will then be to have those technologies employed and to set targets."

Putting Technology to Work

The technology and ability to manufacture energy-efficient products is an area Taiwan can contribute to its APEC fellow economies. One of the hottest such products is light-emitting diodes (LEDs). In terms of energy efficiency, the electricity consumption of LEDs is a tenth of that for incandescent lamps and half that of fluorescent ones, while the lifespan is 20 to 30 times of incandescent lamps and 10 times that of fluorescents. LEDs, therefore, are expected to replace the traditional products as a major light source within five to 10 years. While Japan and the US leads in white LEDs, Taiwan has technological and production advantages in green and red LEDs and related products such as liquid crystal displays, of which Taiwanese products already occupy nearly half the global market.

Developing technologies in producing clean energy and energy-efficient products have become a strategy in all APEC member economies as a way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In terms of its technological level, Taiwan is somewhere in between developed economies such as the United States and Japan and underdeveloped areas. Through APEC, Taiwan can serve as a link to bridge the two, as well as expanding business opportunities for its own green industry.

Write to Jim Hwang at jim@mail.gio.gov.tw