Conference Introduction

The petrochemical industry was once an important foundation to Taiwan’s economic development, however the inadequate enforcement of environmental regulations in the past has resulted in the external costs of pollution and environmental issues being neglected. Although the government has said in the past that it would carry out industrial transformation, the government has not reduced subsidies for fossil fuels, even as the contribution of the petrochemical industry to Taiwan's GDP in the past decade has only accounted for 1.6%. The old model of the brown economy has also held back society's understanding of development. In recent years, air pollution in Taiwan has attracted increasing public attention, and a social consensus is gradually forming around an energy transition pathway based on coal and carbon reduction. However, the issue of air pollution does not relate only to energy issues, it is also closely related to the question of whether the reliance by industries on large-scale generation of electricity at centralized facilities, can undergo change. In other words, to overcome the environmental risks and health effects that come with air pollution, would require the triple helix of "industrial transformation", "energy transition", and "governance reform with regard to air pollution".

We have invited Professor Kim Fortun of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) to give a speech at the forum. Professor Kim Fortun is known for her research on the Bhopal disaster in India, and how people in different groups and geographies understand environmental issues, the uneven distribution of environmental risks and health issues, and the factors that contribute to vulnerability to disasters. She's currently working on the 6+ Cities Study on Air Pollution funded by the National Academy of Sciences; the study's scope is broader than traditional research on air pollution, and seeks to promote cross-disciplinary collaboration and integration, and to examine the causes of air pollution in terms of the risk exposure to humankind and social functions, so as to identify solutions.

Professor Fortun will share the research findings from her work in environmental risks and disaster studies at the forum, and hope that it could result in more exchanges and learning opportunities for environmental risk management in Taiwan.