Taipei: Taiwan should accelerate emissions cuts before 2035 while building a more effective system to automatically respond to climate risks, two Taiwan experts said Wednesday, following a new United Nations report warning that global warming is likely to exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius.
According to Focus Taiwan, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report stated that avoiding an overshoot of the 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold is becoming increasingly challenging. Even with countries fulfilling their current climate commitments, global temperatures could peak at around 1.8 degrees.
In a news release issued by the Science Media Center Taiwan on Wednesday, the experts discussed the report's implications for Taiwan, emphasizing the importance of both emissions cuts and adaptations. Engineering Associate Professor Hsu Hsin-wei from the National Taipei University of Technology underscored the importance of minimizing the rise in temperatures and the duration they remain above the threshold, likening the situation to a vehicle that has lost control.
Professor Hsu emphasized that Taiwan's climate monitoring should be directly linked to actionable measures rather than merely producing data or warnings. He suggested that authorities establish clear thresholds for various climate indicators, such as heat and river levels, with automatic responses triggered when these thresholds are met. These could include decisions on work or class suspensions, water supply reallocations, and support for vulnerable groups.
Chen Cheng-ta, an earth science professor from National Taiwan Normal University, highlighted the need for Taiwan's climate policy to focus on rapidly reducing cumulative emissions by 2030-2035, in addition to its 2050 net-zero target. Both experts advocated for climate stress tests based on a range of future scenarios, especially for extreme weather events, rather than relying on historical data alone.