Nobel laureate warns of extinction risk

GLOBAL WARMING: Humans should find a different developmental model, improve the technology to capture and store solar energy, and share it, Lee Yuan-tseh said

• By Rachel Lin and Jonathan Chin / Staff reporter, with staff writer

Humanity must wake up to the climate crisis or face extinction, Taiwanese Nobel Prize laureate and National Climate Change Committee Adviser Lee Yuan-tseh (李遠哲) said yesterday in a call for urgency in the nation’s transition to renewable energy.

He made the remarks at a renewable energy forum at the National Taiwan Science Education Center in Taipei, saying that humans are on a path to destroying their society and the planet.

Forest fires and extreme weather events occurring globally have made it clear that humanity would face extinction if it does not wake up to the threat posed by climate change, said Lee, a former Academia Sinica president.

The international effort to ban chlorofluorocarbons patched the ozone hole, showing that collective action could work, he said.

Humans must reject consumerism to rediscover value in frugality, cease the mindless building of large-scale constructions that harm the environment and forge a rational social order to live in harmony with nature, he said.

“Global warming and the future of our species is what keeps me up at night,” he said, adding that global challenges require an organized global response.

Humans should find a different developmental model, improve the technology to capture and store solar energy, and share it across national lines, he said.

The UN had said global warming should be limited to 1.5°C from preindustrial levels — which the world surpassed last year, Taiwan Institute for Sustainable Energy chairman Eugene Chien (簡又新) said at the same event.

Taiwan is one of the main culprits for the global failure to contain warming within that threshold, he said.

The nation releases large amounts of carbon gases, is not self-sufficient in energy and has not built enough renewable energy resources, he said.

Taiwan reduced carbon emissions by 4.6 percent in 2023 and aims to cut emissions by 28 percent by 2028, while the UK reduced carbon emissions by 52.7 percent in 2023 and aims to cut them by 68 percent by 2050, he said.

Taiwan would likely prioritize its advantages in chipmaking and artificial intelligence development over the next 10 years, National Climate Change Committee Deputy Convener Tung Tzu-hsien (童子賢) said.

The nation must deal with its energy dependency problem by transitioning to green energy while it still can, he added.