The Practice of Low Carbon City：A Study of Implementation on Pingling’s Low Carbon Tourism Policy
Date Issued
2012
Date
2012
Author(s)
Hou, Hui-Chuan
Abstract
According to the Brundtland Report revealed that economic development should coordinate with the earth''s environment carrying capacity, the coming international organization or treatment, such as UNCED and Kyoto Protocol, make some specifications to improve the impact of climate change and environmental sustainability. With the rise of globalization, the increasing complexity of public affairs and the network also reduce the state’s power. In contrast, the local governments or city governments have strong ability to respond to the need of the people, gradually play an important role in the field of environmental governance. The ICLEI, which is an international organization established in 1990, committed to reduce carbon emissions affairs, and now has more than 1200 international cities as members.
In 2008, Taiwan began to have more obvious actions for the climate, environment or low-carbon policy, including the adoption of sustainable energy policy programs and establishment of the Executive Yuan to save energy and reduce the emission of carbon dioxide. Although the Renewable Energy Development Act, the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Act and other central regulations is not yet complete, the EPA has promoted the “low-carbon city program”, which means that the central government looks forward to the local governance in the relevant fields. In fact, the New Taipei City’s action on environmental issues is earlier than the central government’s. Taipei County has established the first unit, the Low Carbon Community Development Center, to deal with carbon issues in Taiwan, and at the same time, he promoted four major flagship projects which combined with the goal to achieve a low carbon city through tourism and environmental sustainability. Among his various actions, the Pingling’s Low Carbon Tourism Policy received significant attention, and become the benchmark for other cities and counties to promote low-carbon tourism. This article intends to explore the case of the operation of low-carbon urban governance through the Pinglin’s low-carbon tourism policy content and the understanding of the execution.
This article uses the in-depth interview and the literature analysis method to depict the political and economic content of this case and the relevant actors, and uses “Political Support”, “Policy Tools”, “Powers and Responsibilities”, “Communication and Coordination”, “Resource Mobilization” and “Local Combination” as perspectives to analyze the dynamic changes in policy implementation. Further, points out the challenges currently facing, makes policy recommendations, and sums up the difficulties faced by low-carbon urban governance.
The study found that "political support", including the support by the head of the local government and grass-roots support of the policy target groups, is the most critical influencing factor. Due to the characteristics of environmental policy, the general public or private enterprises have no desire to engage in, and the government has to be a leader to promote such policies top-down. With insufficient resources, Pingling is more dependent on the New Taipei City government, and the political leader of city government plays the most important role in resource allocation and who has the power to decide whether the policy goes on. In this case, Pingling has no local funding but depends on the New Taipei City’s financial resources. There is a problem of young population outflow, most of the rest of the population is elderly and children, so the thinking of local people is quite conservative. And because of the great region and existence of many small groups of local people, they don’t have a strong local organization as a leader to integrate the people’s opinion. Therefore, Pingling is quite dependent on municipal funding and planning of the New Taipei City government both in resources and psychological aspects. So far, Pinglin still lack the involvement of local strong organizations and non-profit groups to sustain the policy and relevante public affair, the author believes that there are considerable difficulties and challenges on whether policy continuing or by the local people taking over the business.
The challenges of low-carbon city governing are (1) the definition of "low carbon" is not clear, (2) lack of private mechanisms and capital import with the oversight by government, (3) counties upgraded to the contrary, increases the widening gap between urban and rural areas, and also power to the city rather than separation of powers, (4) the policy of outsourcing to private companies led to the government''s inability and deepen the distrust of the people and their government. Through this case, in order to sustain the practice of low-carbon city, the most important is the spontaneous activities by local people and non-profit organizations, so that can take both of the local development and environmental quality in to account and maintain.
Subjects
low-carbon tourism
Eco-tourism
low-carbon city
urban governance
policy implementation
Type
thesis
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