EXCLUSIVE: Taiwan's Environment Minister on COP29 and Climate Goals

TaiwanPlus News

As this week's COP29 climate conference comes to an end, TaiwanPlus sat down with the country's environment minister Chi-ming Peng to talk about Taiwan's exclusion from the conference, its intentions to meet international standards, and how to reduce carbon emissions amid the growing demand for power from AI and chip production.

Transcript

00:00As we are recording this, it's the last day of the COP29 climate conference.

00:04The parties have not yet come to an agreement on a deal for financing climate projects in

00:09developing countries.

00:11Unfortunately, Taiwan is not able to participate officially in the summit, but Taiwan does

00:16sometimes adopt international standards of agreements that it's not a party to.

00:21So I'd like to ask you, any agreement that does come out of COP29, does Taiwan plan to

00:27adopt those same standards?

00:29Although we cannot join, I still have some of our think tanks, and also our professors

00:35linked with the Ministry of Environment, still go there.

00:38And I can promise to the world, we will follow the UNFCCC standards.

00:44This year's COP29 is focused on climate financing for projects in developing countries.

00:50Currently, does Taiwan have any plan to provide this kind of financing to developing countries?

00:56And if so, how much?

00:58Based on the global treaties, and before that, the global UNFCCC, they have a climate fund.

01:05One year is about $100 billion, US dollars.

01:10And this year, they hope it can 10 times, more than 10 times.

01:15And I think in Taiwan, because we contribute about 0.5% of the carbon emission, actually

01:22we should contribute, we should pay some money for this.

01:27So if we are the member of the UNFCCC, and probably we can join, it's what we should do.

01:34But recently, we cannot.

01:36Taiwan has a policy of reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050, but it faces some major

01:42challenges there.

01:43If we take electricity, for example, less than 10% of that is from renewables.

01:48And even though the use of renewables has gone up, it's basically been offset by the

01:53reduction in nuclear power.

01:55So the result is that since 2020, about 80% of Taiwan's power comes from fossil fuels.

02:01So I'd like to ask you, how does Taiwan plan to address this major gap between its climate

02:07goals of reaching net zero, and its heavy reliance on fossil fuels?

02:12The fossil fuels have two types.

02:13One is coal.

02:14The coal has a lot of the carbon emissions, and the gas.

02:19The gas was lower, and it's about 60% of the carbon than the coal.

02:25So when we transition away the coal, maybe 10 years later, to the gas, it's a huge transition

02:35about the carbon intensity.

02:38So I think in the next five years, the renewable energy will increase, maybe about 25% to 30%

02:46in 2030.

02:48And about the nuclear, actually, my premier and also president is quite open.

02:55So it sounds like this will take several years to implement.

02:59But I want to ask you, how does that square with the huge increase in electricity demand

03:04that Taiwan is facing?

03:06The economy minister said this week that TSMC, which is Taiwan's largest user of electricity,

03:11uses about 8% of all of Taiwan's electricity, may build a new factory every year for the

03:16next 10 years, and that the government needs to prepare the infrastructure for that kind

03:21of electricity use.

03:23So what would you say to those that argue that Taiwan is prioritizing AI over its climate

03:28goals?

03:29So right now, the energy demand is totally, the government, especially the Thai power,

03:35can provide the energy.

03:36So don't worry about this.

03:38We have some plan about the new gas power stations soon, and actually also the renewable

03:47energy.

03:48So right now in our cabinet, we are starting the new tools about this, but not traditional,

03:55the nuclear power station.

03:56If you need to meet that extra demand, is the solution basically to just use more gas?

04:03Yes.

04:04Actually, use the gas is right now is the trend for the global.

04:08You can check the Singapore, Singapore, their gas usage is about 95% of the gas.

04:15So they want to use power lines from Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia for the renewable energy.

04:23So such is this kind of thinking probably in our cabinet.

04:28We talk about this.

04:29Any kind of opportunities or any potential, we can try.

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