By Chen Chia-yi and Jake Chung / Staff reporter, with staff writer

The Taiwan Environmental Protection Union (TEPU) yesterday released its annual sustainability report, while criticizing Taipei, New Taipei City and seven other regions for refusing to provide data.

According to the report, Tainan, Kaohsiung and Pingtung County were rated excellent this year.

Taipei, New Taipei City, Taoyuan, Taichung, Keelung and Chiayi City, as well as the counties of Hsinchu, Yilan and Taitung, did not provide the union with data related to their sustainability policies and received the worst rating of “inferior.”

Photo: CNA

The public has long expected transparency of government information and allowing the public to participate in governance, and the local governments refusing to share data demonstrates the arrogance of those in power and a regression of citizen involvement, TEPU president Yeh Kuo-liang (葉國樑) said.

Chiayi County had the best energy conservation and carbon reduction performance last year, with total power usage dropping by 7.9 percent compared with 2022, TEPU founder Shih Hsin-min (施信民) said.

Kinmen and Changhua counties saw significant growth in renewable energy facilities and a substantial increase in renewable energy generation, Shih said.

The report also showed that regions did not support establishing new nuclear power plants or nuclear waste storage sites, nor did they support extending the service of current nuclear power plants, the report said.

No region opposed the shutdown of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant, also known as the Longmen Nuclear Power Plant, in New Taipei City’s Gongliao District (貢寮).

The power plant was first proposed in 1980 and was nearing completion in 2011 when the Fukushima Dai-ichi incident revived concerns about nuclear power safety.

This ultimately led to the freezing of the facility in 2014, with the last of the fuel rods delivered to the US on March 28, 2021.

Only a few regions released data on greenhouse gas emissions, Shih said, adding that Changhua only periodically recorded such emissions, while Miaoli, Nantou and Penghu counties had no information available.

This demonstrates the low priority of such issues for these local governments.

TEPU academic committee member Lin Jen-pin (林仁斌) urged Hsinchu and Hualien counties to promote water conservation policies, as the report showed that the average daily water consumption of those counties’ residents, at 318 and 295 liters respectively, were higher than other regions.

Lin also urged regions to work on wastewater pipe networks, saying that less than 30 percent of most counties and cities were connected to water purification plants.

The group urged the Hualien County Government to investigate what caused the county’s forest coverage to drop from 80 percent last year to 38 percent this year, whether natural disaster or human caused.

Pingtung County had the best performance in removing invasive species, clearing 3,600 hectares of 34,000 foreign animals, the report showed.

Tainan removed 8,014 invasive green iguanas last year, it said.