Taiwan Risk Society Forum: How Can We Rebuild Social Trust In EnergyTransition After Taiwan's Referendum?

On 24 November 2018, Taiwan held three referendums on energy-related issues,which were all passed. The three questions asked if the public agreed that theelectricity output of thermal power plants should be lowered by at least 1 percentevery year (under question 7), that Taiwan should prohibit the construction of newcoal-fired power plants or generators (under question 8), and that the first paragraphof Article 95 of the Electricity Act, which stipulated that, "all nuclear-energy-basedpower-generating facilities shall completely cease operations by 2025", should beabolished (under question 16). The results of the referendum will have an impact onTaiwan's energy transition. As there are many diverse voices in Taiwan with regard toTaiwan's energy transition, this has resulted in disagreements among the variousstakeholders on the locations as to where to set up wind turbines and natural gaspower plants, etc., which has affected the level of trust among the citizenry. TheMinistry of Economic Affairs has announced that it would introduce a new energypolicy within two months of the referendums but this disregards the fact that Taiwan'senergy transition is a long-term social project, which requires the sustained innovationin green energy technology and stable government reforms with the view ofencouraging behavior change among the general public.

In order to understand the perceptions of the Taiwanese towards energy transition, theRisk Society and Policy Research Center Taiwan conducted a survey to find out thelevel of public awareness in energy policies and their level of support for Taiwan'senergy transition, in the areas of participatory governance, energy conservation, theinternalization of external costs, local energy governance, electricity market reformand green capital. Based on the results, we analyze the key policies that Taiwanshould pursue to achieve Taiwan's long-term goals in energy transition.

According to our survey, 82% of the Taiwanese are concerned about the developmentof energy transition, however only 32% of our respondents are aware that coal-firedpower is the main energy source in Taiwan, and 44% of the respondents thought thatnuclear energy is the main power generation source (43% among those aged 18-29and over 50% among those who were aged 30-39 and 40-49). In addition, only 41%of the respondents were aware of the government's renewable energy target for 2025,and 57% who were not clear about this policy goal. As such, the survey showed that aconsiderable proportion of the public had inaccurate perceptions of Taiwan's energy-related issues and did not understand the government's energy transition pathwaysand goals.

Our survey was based on a similar survey conducted in Germany, which explored thepublic's perceptions of Taiwan's current energy policies. In general, the respondentsfelt that it was urgent for Taiwan to undergo energy transition, however they were alsoof the opinion that the way policies are currently promoted is chaotic, lacks a coherentstrategy and is somewhat unfair.

We also found in our survey that there were only about 20% of the respondents whowere resolutely against any price increases in electricity prices. But of the priceincrease that 48% of the respondents were willing to accept, the magnitude of increasethat they were willing to accept was lower than the estimated financial impact thatTaiwan's energy transition is expected to bring. [1] The main reasons whyrespondents were willing to accept price increases for electricity were primarilybecause of factors such as the reduction of air pollution and for environmentalprotection, followed by the possibility of financial incentives to conserve energy andfor the reduction of nuclear risks. There were also 60% of the respondents who werewilling to pay higher prices to support replacing nuclear energy with renewableenergy, but this is lower than the 85% in the survey that our center conducted in 2015.

It was also found that when respondents had higher energy knowledge, they wouldalso be more willing to accept higher electricity prices as a result of energy taxes onfuel oil. Our survey thus makes clear that in order to increase the public's acceptanceof higher electricity and fuel prices, our focus should be placed on enhancing thepublic's knowledge on energy-related issues, as well as to emphasize the benefits ofprice adjustments in air pollution reduction.

During the mid-term election which was held alongside the referendums, there wereonly a third of the county magistrates who had come out with specific energy policies.From our survey, we found that the public were concerned with whether countymagistrates had plans to provide incentives and rewards to encourage powerconservation, as well as to supervise the effectiveness of the power saving measuresadopted by businesses. 80% of the respondents were also willing to install solarpanels in their homes and communities, however inadequate installation space and thelack of subsidies to offset initial investments costs are bottlenecks that need to beresolved.

From our survey, we found that the general public are concerned about Taiwan'senergy policies and are willing to proactively share information on energy-relatedinformation. However, as the accuracy of their energy knowledge is not high, thisaffected the extent to which they were accepting of energy conservation andelectricity price adjustments. There were also contradictions in the results of thereferendums, in that the whereas public voted to lower the electricity output ofthermal power plants by at least 1 percent in order to reduce air pollution, and alsorejected the goal of a nuclear-free homeland by 2025, yet they also rejected importingagricultural products and food from the Fukushima area where a nuclear accidentoccurred.

In light of the contradiction in the referendum results, our survey shows that in theprocess of energy transition in Taiwan, this requires transparent public dialogue andin-depth discussions on the pros and cons of energy-related issues. Energy transitionrequires massive government and social engineering, to establish a long-term dialoguethat helps citizens move up the social learning curve, to prevent our society fromdescending into an endless series of contradictions and conflicts, which uses politicalmobilization in replacement of long-term policy planning.

We recommend that when governments at all levels (from central to local governance)pursue energy transition policies, they should follow the principles of social justiceand citizen participation in the 2017 Guidelines on Energy Development, to promotemulti-party and multi-level policy-communication, as well as establish diversecommunication platforms, including using traditional media such as television, aswell as emerging social media networks, to effectively engage the public indiscussions on energy-related issues.

At the same time, we call upon the government to provide a clearer energy transitionpathway, to engage in dialogue with society, so as to enhance the trust that the publichave towards energy reform. Energy transition is closely aligned to societal transition,as such the Risk Society and Policy Research Center calls on all sectors of society toadopt a more forward-looking perspective to appreciate Taiwan's climate change andcarbon-reduction challenges. The earlier we are able to make a paradigm shift from abrown economy and brown energy model, and to move away from the shackles ofsocial confrontation, the faster we will be able to catch up to the global trend of a low-carbon and green economy model.

Issue date: Nov. 07, 2018