The climate emergency, the extinction of species, the accumulation of waste and a large range of pollutions… Welcome to the Anthropocene! In Taiwan, the government has announced its desire to reduce the carbon footprint and achieve “net zero emissions” by 2050. The task is complicated by the inertia of industries, which account for half of the country’s total emissions. In December 2021, a referendum will be conducted about the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant and the Taoyuan Gas Terminal. The KMT has seized this opportunity for criticizing the government, and the gas terminal has stirred divisions among environmental groups. We will discuss these questions from a recent publication on Environmental Movements and Politics in the Asian Anthropocene, edited by Paul Jobin, Ming-sho Ho and Michael Hsiao (Singapore: ISEAS, 2021). Paul Jobin is, since 2016, Associate Research Fellow at the Institute of Sociology, Academia Sinica Taiwan. Previously he was Senior Lecturer in the Department of East Asian Studies at the University of Paris-Diderot. From 2009 to 2013, he was director of the CEFC Taipei. His research focuses on the socio-politics of environmental issues in Taiwan and Japan.
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