Four years earlier young protesters took over the country’s parliament in opposition to a proposed free trade deal with China. The deal was scuttled and the protest sparked a wave of demonstrations - known as the Sunflower movement - which ultimately led to a change of government two years later.

Protest and the activists who organise them have a track record of making a difference in Taiwan.

But when it comes to Taiwan’s massive carbon emissions - and the industries that are largely responsible for them - protests have so far failed to move the dial.

In 2021 Taiwan emitted 11.85 tonnes of CO2 per person compared to New Zealand’s 6.95 tonnes. (Methane is of course a different story.) And as in New Zealand, emissions haven’t been dropping.

I popped into the Greenpeace office in Taipei to have a chat with their climate and energy manager Yung-Jen Chen about the priorities of climate activists in Taiwan.

Chen says Greenpeace is focussing on two main campaigns this year. One is an attempt to have the presidential candidates in this year’s election have a debate dedicated to climate change and how Taiwan is going to meet its Net Zero 2050 commitment.

If successful, it will be the first ever presidential debate on the topic.

But the main objective is to put pressure on the country’s massive industrial sector to speed up their transition to 100% renewable energy.

Chen says the focus of the campaign is the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC ) - the world’s dominant manufacturer of advanced microchips - which accounts for 10% of the country’s overall power consumption. 

And electricity is by far the biggest contributor to Taiwan’s C02 emissions at 56%.

Chen says TSCM had a commitment of reaching 20% renewable energy by 2030 to be compatible with Apple’s Clean Energy Supply Project but after Apple accelerated its timeline to 100% by 2030 TSCM was forced to increase to to 40% because close to half its production goes to Apple.

“But we don’t think that’s enough. The main reason Taiwan hasn’t been able to reduce its emissions is because of energy consumption. The government says it will peak around 2028 and slowly reduce to net zero by 2050.”

“We’re pushing for TSMC to be 100% as soon as possible.”

Greenpeace practising what it preaches with its roof covered in solar panels

Chen accepts that some of TSMC’s chips are used in technologies that will help reduce emissions - like the chips in EVs - but says the vast majority go into cellphones and computers with demand driven by consumerism rather than need.

He says Taiwanese industries wanting to increase their renewable energy consumption overwhelmingly opt for renewable energy contracts and certification rather than contributing to the generation of energy. In effect they’re competing for a limited supply of renewable energy rather than growing the pie.

“Taiwan needs a huge increase in renewable energy if it’s to meet its 2050 target - something like 150 or 200 gigawatts and to reach that will require solar on every roof in Taiwan.”

Taiwan Power was a state monopoly and until 2017 generators of renewable energy couldn’t sell direct to consumers. Following a campaign by Greenpeace and others that changed.

And companies are prepared to pay a premium for renewable if it’s required by overseas buyers.

US$10 carbon levy

The Taiwan government announced a carbon levy of about US$10 per tonne earlier this year. But Chen says the price is way too low.

He says the government described it as a levy rather than a tax and settled on a very low price because it is scared of upsetting the manufacturing sector.

“It’s very, very cheap. We’ve said it’s okay to start at $10 but you need to have a plan for it to reach the global price of carbon.

At $10 companies will just pay the levy and not change their behaviour, Chen says.

The ruling Democratic Progressive Party isn’t moving fast enough, Chen says, but it’s better than the alternative party, the Kuomintang (KMT), which wants to retain the country’s nuclear power generation which the DPP is committed to phasing out by 2025.

Chen says he’s aware of the argument of some climate activists that nuclear power is preferable to continuing to burn coal but that Greenpeace is committed to rid the island of both.

He says power companies can ramp up generation with offshore wind projects but that will still leave a large power deficit and the best way to fill that would be to cover the country’s roofs in solar panels.

Taiwan is a leading developer of solar panel technology but strangely has very low uptake in Taiwan itself.

Google satellite images reveal that virtually none of the country's factories are using solar panels to generate electricity.

The two minute city

Chen, who has a background in urban planning, is bemused by the recent fad for the “15 minute city.”

He says the density of urban living in Taiwan means that for most people nothing is more than two minutes away by scooter.

Transport only accounts for 10% of Taiwan’s emissions compared to about 24% in New Zealand.

And although most families have a car, it’s far more common to get around on a scooter because finding a park in the city is all but impossible 

Most people, he says, think it’s too hot for large parts of the year to cycle. “So for Taiwan it’s more a question of transitioning from fossil fuel scooters to e-scooters.”

“E scooters are probably the best solution for us -  but only if we have clean clean energy supply to feed the scooters.”

But he says the fossil fuel scooter industry is a powerful lobby and the transition is slow - despite the technology being fully developed.

The current economic model is based on continued economic and population growth which doesn’t make sense. The population isn’t growing and we urgently need to decouple our power consumption from our economic growth.

“I think the whole mindset of urban planning has to change to take account of the lack of population growth and the need to conserve energy.”

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Jeremy Rose is currently in Taiwan and travelled there with assistance from the Asia New Zealand Foundation.

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