TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The vast majority of Taiwanese people say they have been affected by climate change and support more renewable energy use to avert severe climate disasters in the future, according to a newly released survey.

The survey was conducted by National Taiwan University’s Risk Society and Policy Research Center between May and June this year, and was released on Monday (July 17). Of the 1,075 surveyed via cellphone and landline, nearly 90% said they had already been affected by climate change, while 48.4% said they had been “affected a lot.”

Meanwhile, more than 80% of respondents agreed that Taiwan needs to actively promote energy transformation to prevent future generations from suffering severe climate disasters.

Responses were approximately split on whether or not using economic policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions slowed economic growth, with 43.5% of respondents saying they supported this, and 43.7% saying they did not.

However, the survey also showed that more than 80% of the public are willing to pay more for electricity to prevent climate disasters, and more than 80% said they would support the imposition of fees for carbon-emitting businesses.

Taiwanese people are also amenable to electric vehicles, and more than 20% said they already have electric vehicles at home, and 45% would be willing to buy one. Outside the major cities, the level of electric vehicle ownership is higher than the national average, at 24.4%.

NTU Professor Chou Kuei-tien (周桂田) said that the results show there is a keen awareness of the issues caused by climate change in Taiwan society. “People generally feel that climate disasters are inevitable in the future, and more and more people have suffered losses from climate disasters,” he said.

Data adapted from NTU survey results. (Taiwan News image)

Roughly 17% of respondents said they had been affected by between one and five climate disasters since the year 2000, though 78.5% said they had not been affected at all. 9.2% of respondents said that those climate disasters had cost them between NT$40,000-60,000 (US$1,287-1,930).

Chou said that the government needs to propose climate change policies to guide people. This would be in line with the recent International Panel on Climate Change report that pointed out climate warming is already an irreversible trend, but that the public still has trust in the government’s ability to tackle these issues, he said.

However, Chou said Taiwan’s transformation to renewable energy needs more systematic and careful planning.

“On the one hand, incentives for installing rooftop solar panels should be strengthened,” Chou said. “On the other hand, when promoting the construction of large-scale solar power projects, the principles of sustainable land planning should be followed, and problem-solving mechanisms that involve social dialogue and consensus should be developed to avoid confrontation.”

Taiwan has made progress in increasing the use of renewable energy, but remains reliant on fossil fuels, and the percentage of energy provided by renewables is negligible. Taiwan’s wind energy accounted for less than 1% of the country’s energy consumption in 2021, according to the government's statistics department.

Taiwan has also been criticized by the Climate Change Performance Index for its absence of oil and gas phase-out plans. According to 2021 data from Taiwan's statistics department, coal and natural gas energy production accounted for just over 93% of all energy consumed.

Despite Taiwan’s poor record, the 2023 CCPI report noted “no country is doing enough to prevent dangerous climate change.” The Taiwan government has a stated goal of achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Both the U.S. and China recorded temperatures of over 50 degrees Celsius on Sunday, while Taiwan has been sweltering under record temperatures in July.