Taiwan Youth Climate Coalition — 2020 AUTUMN REPORT
The autumn was busy, as we tried hard to involve more youths fighting climate change with us.
After we organised the Climate March as a part of the Fridays For Future (FFF) ‘Global Day of Climate Action’, we urged our government to set up more ambitious targets in the upcoming amendment of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction and Management Act. In October, we organised a mock COP workshop to engage youths and other stakeholders of Climate Change.
And we also became a winner of the U20 climate forum!
Youth can play a crucial role in sustainability. Let’s join hands together, and bring positive changes to our planet.
Editor of Autumn Report: Ying-Chun Liu
Feature Story: We are the Earth’s New Voice!
By Anwar Wade
This October, we had the fortune to join the U20 International Forum, and became one of the winners for our effort of stimulating the possibility of planet rebirth through intergenerational dialogue.
We are the Earth’s New Voice!
What is U20?
The U20 (Under20) International Forum offers a unique opportunity for the young generation from 12–30 to gather and turns action plans into feasible solutions with the guidance from government and industry representatives.
The forum is organized by CommonWealth Magazine Group (CWM), the Center for Global Affairs and Science Engagement, Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST GASE), and supported by the Low Carbon Initiative of European Chamber of Commerce Taiwan.
Why did we join U20?
The world has been inspired by teenage activist Greta Thunberg after her debut in 2018. Since then, youths all over the world have launched the climate change movement. However, the U20 generation has not been given sufficient resources to implement these long-stored ideas…until the U20 International Youth Forum.
CommonWealth Magazines’ CSR office surveyed youths between 12 and 18 (from April to June) this year. They found out that more than 90% believe the world is overloaded and 86% believe that all human beings should be responsible for the overloaded earth. The U20 international Youth forum is a way of giving the youths the spotlight: they can express not only their concerns but their (long-thought) solutions. Through this forum, CommonsWealth Magazine took part as the catalyst creating a place where ideas can be exchanged between the U20 generation and the industries.
U20 is more than just a forum
The candidates were divided into three groups: Plastic Reduction, Climate Change and Sustainable Energy. After the primary selection, 18 teams were shortlisted for the second stage: a 10-week training session. It included 3 workshops where the candidates could receive mentorship from the industries. The workshops also served as a platform for the youths to advance their presentation skills and develop their preliminary ideas. Afterwards, a winner was selected from each group and invited as the speaker for the U20 forum on October 28, 2020. The winners were as followed:
1. Plastic Reduction Group: GreenCampusHLGS
“GreenCampusHLGS’’ is a high school action initiated by students of National Hualien Girls’ High School (HLGS). After five years, they had developed into a student society to promote in-campus plastic reduction in the long term. The founding members had become university students.
The U20 forum is an opportunity to re-engage their alumnis into the campaign. With the support from universities and the U20 mentors, we can expect more vibrant actions to happen in Hualien Girls’ High School.
2. Climate Change Group: Taiwan Youth Climate Coalition (TWYCC)
With the idea that Taiwan can extend a helping hand to other countries not only during the epidemic but also during the climate crisis, TWYCC has set up an International Cooperation Office to connect with other international youth organisations.
Please read our previous article ”Taiwan’s Youth Can Help, Too” to further understand our vision.
3. Sustainable Energy Group: Mr. Watt
Mr. Watt is the first private company selling renewable energy in Taiwan. Their mission is to connect renewable generation with customers in the local renewable energy market. Their company had made renewable energy more accessible by offering flexible and customized contracts.
Mr. Watt’s members are all under the age of 25. While the society was still debating about sustainable energy, they had decided to take action. Aside from selling renewable electricity, the company also provides Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) to help its customers’ products to stand out in the global market.
As one of the winners, TWYCC had the opportunity to showcase our experiences to over 700 people, and be inspired by the other winners. In the following section, we invite our two members, Anwar Wade and Yen-Chi Chen, to share their experience from the forum
U20 and I
Anwar Wade
My name is Anwar Wade, a Belizean student currently based in Taiwan. Over my summer vacation I was given the opportunity to work at GASE, which led me to another life changing event, U20. Through the U20 International Youth Forum mentioned above, I have seen these innovative ideas mentioned first hand.
What was it like being an intern at GASE? A recap of the forum:
It’s all fun and games until they tell you that you need to help organize an entire two month workshop. Like Yen-Chi, I am also a member of TWYCC’s International Cooperation Office. But I’ll be giving you a glimpse of U20 from an organizer’s perspective.
Have you ever been to an event and wonder wow this is going so smoothly? Turns out most of the time it isn’t (LOL). I am usually the person on the stage in front of the judges but the tables turned on me this summer. Interning at GASE, despite not being able to participate with TWYCC, was just as rewarding. Did I mention I didn’t know what I was doing?
Being a part of U20 as an organizer, participant or a judge were all equally rewarding. But there is one thing about working at U20 and being on the sidelines that brings a special type of special: seeing your baby come to life. Yes, I called U20 my baby. Creating a platform and an atmosphere for participants to reflect and share their projects that I am sure have taken their sweat and tears. Also, seeing the stimulation of the participants’ minds as the judges provide comments on their projects.
The forum kicked off in September with the plastic reduction workshop, followed by the climate change and sustainable training and sustainable energy workshop. I missed the second workshop, due to GASE not having enough manpower for the day, but the other two were amazing. I think there are a lot of concerns that our youths have but adults play a blind eye to it.
A special concern is the environment and let me tell you, they were surely expressed in this forum. I think I have never been in such a room with so many innovative and diverse ideas but the best part is that these ideas could also inspire other minds, such as myself.
All in all, I think that U20 was a huge success. Voices of her were heard, new minds were inspired and of course new bridges were built between participants, audience and judges. I feel honored to know that I could be a part of such an event and although I do not know where each participant is now, I do hope that they take what they have learnt in U20 and keep working towards what they believe in. I am eager to see what next year’s U20 will hold and I sure do hope more people and myself can still be a part of it.
What was it like to have an audience of 700 people? A recap of U20 forum.
Yen-Chi Chen
“Just do the presentation like Steve Jobs at an iPhone keynote,” a teammate told me in August. I’m Yen-Chi from TWYCC’s International Cooperation Office, and my role in the U20 pre-forum competition was as a TED speaker wannabe — proposing our team’s action plan to the judges within eight minutes.
I didn’t have the turtleneck to reincarnate Mr. Jobs, but I did try my best to explain the “why, how, and what” as if I were Simon Sinek. It’s nice, really, that our team has the competition as an opportunity to reflect on our year-long projects: why we think international cooperation is important for our domestic advocacy, how we plan to make lasting connections worldwide, and what’s next for our ongoing projects.
Fast-forward to October, we had luckily won the competition and got invited as a speaker at the U20 forum. So, what was it like to give a talk to 700 people? I felt less adrenaline than expected, since I only saw a sea of face masks from the stage. Well, we are in the grand year of 2020 with covid after all. It was still great fun, though, knowing that the diverse audience ranged from CEOs and chief editors to pupils and college students, and seeing my friends laugh not-so-subtly at the jokes I threw in the powerpoint.
However, I liked it the most when I was just one of the 700 people in the audience. I loved hearing the stories of other youths around my age, how they fought for sustainability through various approaches — some of them tried to reduce plastic waste in their high schools, some started their jobs in the renewable energy industry, and one of them organized climate protests and became the youngest councilor in New Zealand. So many possibilities out there. The stories are not only empowering to us as members of the environmental community, but also inspiring me as a twenty-year-old who wonders a lot about her goals, career, and life trajectory.
To sum up, the U20 forum was quite lovely. I enjoyed it a lot and hoped the audience had their takeaways from my eight minutes. Oh, and one more thing… At the end of the forum, a high school teacher came to us and said she liked the “World Climate role-play negotiation” held by TWYCC every year. We’re now talking through the details, and if the stars align, we will be holding a short winter camp for her students. I am personally very excited; hopefully, we will share with you the news about the World Climate negotiation game soon.
The TWYCC’s U20 team are: Carrie Chao, Jill Liang, Kai-Chun Chuang, Sabrina Hsieh, Sara Wu, Vivian Tao, Ying-Chun Liu and Yen-Chi Chen (team leader)
What’s new in Taiwan ?
Sustainability on Construction Conducted by CHIMEI Enterprise
Kai-Chun Chuang
In recent years, the impact of renewable energy facilities on the local environment has become a controversial issue. But CHIMEI’s latest corporate social responsibility (CSR) project, CHIMEI green-energy park, had found a way to resolve the conflict.
This south Taiwan based performance materials company had turned the spare factory into “CHIMEI green-energy park”. The conventional reinforced concrete piles were replaced with steel construction piles to make the construction more sustainable, allowing land beneath buildings to breathe. Every tree that needed to be removed for construction was safely relocated. Three forest areas were reserved to conserve more than 70 local tree species.
Currently, CHIMEI has reached 22 MW in green energy capacity. In the future, it is estimated that CHIMEI can be 80% self-sufficiency, leading to the benefit of carbon reduction in 36%.
Read more: http://www.chimeicorp.com/en-US/?page=green-energy-park
The World’s First Semiconductor Company Joining RE100 Comes from Taiwan
Sara Wu
In July 2020, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSMC) announced to become the first RE100 semiconductor company.
As the world’s biggest semiconductor manufacturer, TSMC committed to fulfilling the long-term sustainability goal: Renewable energy will account for 20% of the electricity consumption in factories and 100% in non-factory. TSMC also committed to 100% renewable energy by the end of 2050.
TSMC is the biggest green energy buyer in Taiwan. Since 2017, TSMC has set up a Renewable Energy Task Force to facilitate the transition. This year, TSMC became Taiwan’s first group of energy wheeling transactions with 12 other companies in May. At the same time, it has continued to sign long-term power procurement contracts including offshore and land-based wind power. By July 2020, its total renewable energy installed capacity had reached 1.2GW, approximately reducing 2.189 million tons of carbon emissions.
Read more: https://csr.tsmc.com/csr/en/update/greenManufacturing/caseStudy/37/index.html
Kaohsiung City Turns the Landfills into the Solar Farms
Ying-Chun Liu
To comply with the Executive Yuan’s green energy policy, the Environmental Protection Bureau of Kaohsiung City decided to deploy 3 of the landfills and transformed them into solar farms.
Kaohsiung’s first pilot site sits in District DaShe, where it can soak up the sun and produce enough electricity. The DaShe solar farm opened for business in September 2020, and it will be able to produce a maximum of about 220.68-kilowatt-hours of solar power. Additionally, the surplus power from the DaShe farm can also be sold back to the grid for revenue.
It is worth mentioning that these 3 solar farms in Kaohsiung are expected to cut at least 2,000 metric tons in carbon emissions and bring in about NT$1.45 million in income from solar power sales per year.
Read more: http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/local/archives/2000/05/29/0000037904
Editor: Ying-Chun Liu and Jill Liang
Proofreader: Regina Chang
Executive writers: Anwar Wade, Yen-Chi Chen, Sara Wu, Ying-Chun Liu
Editor-in-chief: Shun-Te Wang
