Climate change research in Taiwan: beyond following the mainstream

Abstract

ABSTRACT Climate change research has emerged over the past few decades as a vibrant field of inquiry with significant impact on society, economics and politics. Analysing the context of past climate change research is necessary to check progress, gaps, needs and to optimise the benefits of future development. This paper analyses nearly 6000 government-funded climate change research projects in Taiwan from 1993 to 2020 based on data in Government Research Bulletin (GRB), supplemented by reviewing Taiwan’s science and technology policies to obtain a constructive research discourse. While the Taiwan government has continued to actively promote climate change research following the IPCC (the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), it suffers from uneven development of research fields, lack of social and interdisciplinary/transdisciplinary research, and a gap between scientific research and decision-making. While these individual issues can be addressed, they stem from a core factor: the lack of determination and commitment of politicians and government to implement recommended mitigation/adaptation policies. This is one of very few papers investigating climate change research from a national perspective and the first focusing on Taiwan, and is of potential interest to researchers, policymakers and members of the general public concerned about national-scale climate change research.