Analysis: Taiwan Facing Warm Winter and Extreme Weather
Recent climate reports predict that 2023 will be the hottest year on record. Meteorologist ChiMing Peng explains how rising temperatures can create unpredictable weather conditions for Taiwan.
Transcript
00:00 2023 is set to be the hottest year on record. So what does this mean for Taiwan? Are there
00:06 any particular risk factors given Taiwan's geography?
00:10 So in Taiwan, the hottest temperature every day is not equal to the global, but in average,
00:18 we still have a very hot summer compared to the hot, not hottest one, a top 10. And also
00:24 the very warm autumn. And supposedly, because of the El Nino, it will be a very hot winter.
00:33 So in Taiwan, the temperature is still very high. And just quite amazing is typhoon, because
00:39 the higher sea temperature means there will be more energy for the typhoon itself. So
00:45 it will be a more strong typhoon. So such a kind of strong typhoon can maybe more damage
00:53 in the future. From right now until the next year, it's unpredictable territory. I don't
01:02 know.
01:04 What does the long term look like for Taiwan if the climate emergency worsens?
01:09 Taiwan is a small island because we're surrounded by the ocean. So we cannot suffer such hot
01:16 weather compared to some, for example, United States or in China or European Union. So in
01:22 Taiwan, we suffer such a kind of extreme event more than the global warming. Although it's
01:28 warming, but in the future, actually, the temperature is going up very quickly by all
01:34 the predictions show in Taiwan, for example, some area before 2050 will be over, compared
01:41 now will be over one to two degrees. So it's over the record of the global. But the people
01:48 think, oh, just OK.
01:51 People often applaud Taiwan for its green policies, having this developed recycling
01:56 system and following the sustainable development goals. But with the elections coming up in
02:01 just a few months time, is Taiwan doing enough to tackle the climate emergency?
02:07 I think the first thing is that we should be open to information, open to data and educate
02:13 people more, understand about this. It's very important because lots of people don't understand
02:19 the importance of climate change. They notice, but no action. So that's a problem. And the
02:25 second is, you know, in Taiwan, we can have more green jobs in the future. So it's kind
02:34 of the transition from the enterprise and also the government. But right now, we did
02:40 -- I don't -- I don't -- I don't -- I will not say do nothing. We do something, but it's
02:45 not enough.
02:46 [BLANK_AUDIO]