President Ma Ying-jeou met with Mr. Thomas L. Friedman at the Presidential Office on the morning of January 11 and extended a cordial welcome to Mr. Friedman on his visit to Taiwan.
In remarks, President Ma noted that Mr. Friedman is not only a columnist for The New York Times, but also a prominent opinion leader and thinker. Mr. Friedman's book The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century has already been translated into many languages. Another of his works Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution – And How It Can Renew America further brings the topics of global warming and energy conservation into each household. The president noted that Mr. Friedman has won the Pulitzer Prize three times and is widely recognized as one of the world's most important public intellectuals.
President Ma commented that Taiwan has truly experienced the phenomena described by Mr. Friedman in his books. Over the past 20 years, he said, temperatures in Taiwan have risen and rainfall has increased substantially, already exceeding the volume of water that Taiwan's land is able to absorb. Over the past 16 years, the most amount of rainfall brought by a typhoon here has risen from 2,000 mm to nearly 3,000 mm. Meanwhile, although Taiwan's population accounts for only 0.3% of the world's population, it is responsible for 1% of the world's total carbon emissions. Taiwan ranks 18th in the world for per capita carbon emissions, which is highly alarming, he said.
President Ma stated that he has promoted energy conservation and carbon reduction policies since taking office, and these initiatives have already produced concrete results. For instance, Taiwan's carbon emissions in 2008 fell 4.4% and dropped back to 2005 levels, he said. In addition, over the past year and a half, Taiwan has saved 6.3 terawatt hours of electricity, which is equivalent to two years of residential power use of the 1.87 million people in Tainan City and Tainan County. Meanwhile, the reduction in carbon emissions is equivalent to the annual carbon absorption capacity of 10,919 Da-an Forest Parks. The results of these policies, he said, are quite substantial.
President Ma furthermore said that Taiwan has drafted four pieces of legislation regarding energy conservation and reduction of carbon emissions, with two of these bills having already passed into law. A bill on reduced greenhouse gas emissions and an energy tax bill are currently under review. The president said he hopes that in the future that the concepts advocated by Mr. Friedman will be implemented on a wide scale here. President Ma indicated that the government is presently amending its targets on conserving energy and cutting carbon emissions, hoping to bring the volume of emissions in 2020 back to the levels of 2005, and the volume in 2050 down to half of that of emissions in 2000.
President Ma stressed that while the ROC (Taiwan) is neither a party to the Kyoto Protocol nor able to participate in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change meetings, we still are willing to unilaterally set standards, set an example by taking part in these initiatives, and fulfill our obligations and commitments as a member of the global village.
Mr. Friedman expressed his deep admiration for the results achieved by Taiwan with regards to conserving energy and reducing carbon emissions. In addition, he engaged in an in-depth discussion with the president on a wide range of issues associated with Taiwan's green energy industry. Mr. Friedman reiterated that Taiwan is one of his favorite nations, remarking that Taiwan has a population of over 20 million people but has no natural resources, and has relied instead on the vitality of its people, its creativity, and its corporate sector to successfully become an outstanding nation, he said.