Waste Not Why Not

08/05/2024

End of an era! My last episode (for now) with Waste Not Why Not. I really can't put into words how much this show has meant to me over the years. It taught me how to podcast, how to be a reporter, and most of all it changed some minds on the environment.

Go listen in on our final episode conversation with myself and 吳怡慈 Emily Y. Wu

‎Show Waste Not WHY Not, Ep Finale: Our last episode (for now) - May 6, 2024

07/01/2024

Part 2 of Nature N8 at COP28 is now live! Including clips with representatives from New Taipei City government and Taiwanese NGO Mom Loves Taiwan Association, Chia-Wei Chao of Taiwan Climate Action Network, and Emmanuel Fromont, Corporate VP and President of EMEA at Acer.

Play it!

Welcome to Waste Not Why Not, a climate podcast from Ghost Island Media. Debuted on Earth Day in 2019, it's hosted by Nature N8 (Nate Maynard), a sustainability consultant working on energy, ocean and waste.

12/12/2023

New episode where N8 records daily observations and analysis on the behind the scenes of COP28.

We will have more coming soon along with some reporting N8 did for Taiwan Plus, but this is just a teaser of things to come.

Watch this space! Don't forget to subscribe so you won't miss anything.

‎Show Waste Not WHY Not, Ep Live from COP28, Part 1 - Dec 12, 2023

08/10/2022

If you're in Taipei for the long weekend, Sunday is the last day to catch the annual Climate Action Expo at Songyan Culture Park. Stop by the 美國在台協會 AIT AIT booth where yours truly is a part of the 美國資料中心 American Spaces wall!

Climate expos around the world are raising awareness for "Race to Zero” - a global mission to reach net zero carbon emission by 2050. We're honored to be a part of this lineup.

Waste Not Why Not podcast was launched on Earth Day 2019 precisely to raise awareness to the climate crisis. We're humbled to have a partner like AIT that's dedicated to empowering works around sustainably in non-conventional ways.

Their work with Taiwan's Ministry of Education on gaming (see the iPads that kids are playing with in photos), hackathon competitions with NASA for environment solutions, the podcast partnership with 鬼島之音 Ghost Island Media for public engagement; they all communicate that solving the climate crisis takes multi-prong approaches. We're excited to see what they have in store for the coming year.

The Climate Action Expo at-large center around three themes: adaptation, decarbonization and education. Exhibitors include the public and the private sectors.

AIT and ’s partnership takes center stage around a booth mimicking a green classroom. Lessons include panels from the Biden Administration’s climate plans, US/Taiwan and regional collaborations, innovations, video games, and a Waste Not Why Not interview on green buildings.

Need a refresher climate course? Head to AIT’s booth at the Taipei Climate Action Expo hosted at Songshan Creative Park in Warehouse 3.

Guidebook here for the expo: https://www.twcae.icdi.network/guidebook

AIT's storytelling session on "The Lorax" by Dr. Seuss is also tomorrow: https://www.twcae.icdi.network/picturebook

03/10/2022

Editing a new Waste Not Why Not episode. Coming up SOOOOOOOOOOOOON!!!!!

23/09/2022

Taiwan is one of the 110+ countries committed to a future by 2050. In March this year, the National Development Council (NDC, 國發會) laid out the country’s game plan for this: to leverage tech innovations and climate policies as the foundation for four ‘strategies’ for transition: energy, industrial, lifestyle and social. (See Graph 1)

Key dates and goals were set for different sectors to achieve net-zero.

The Building Sector
2030 - New public buildings to be nearly net-zero.
2040 - 50% of existing buildings to be nearly net-zero.
2050 - 100% of new buildings and 85% of existing buildings to be nearly net-zero.

The Transportation Sector
2025 - 35% of urban public buses to be electric.
2030 - 100% of urban buses and gov fleets to be electric.
2040 - 100% of cars/scooters sold to be electric.

The Industrial Sector
2030 - 100% lights in commercial buildings to be LED.
2030 - 60% of air conditionings to be energy optimized.
2040 - To introduce low-carbon processes like hydrogen energy and recycle CO2.
2050 - To fully adopt low carbon process.

The Electricity Sector
2025 - To have no new coal-fired power plants.
2030 - To generated 40GW of wind and solar power capacity.
2050 - 60% of energy to come from renewables.
(See Graph 2 for more dates and goals.)

But like all things, this needs to be paid for. Taiwan has set up a budget breakdown for NT$900 billion (equivalent of $28.4B in USD, or €28.9B) allocated for the transition to .

24% of that budget for renewable energy and hydrogen.
24% for the grid and energy storage
19% for the electrification of transportation.
(See Graph 3 for a full breakdown of budget.)

So how do you and me get involved? See graph 4 for a clue to the industries and sectors that are about to see a lot of action, including wind power, hydrogen, storage, EV, finance, and lifestyle.

There are exciting times ahead. Policies will be implemented, and technologies will be changing. The next few years are going to be what shapes the future with each of us heading up that change.

Read the full report, “Taiwan’s Pathway to Net-Zero Emissions in 2050” from the National Development Council:

https://www.ndc.gov.tw/en/Content_List.aspx?n=B927D0EDB57A7A3A

#鬼島之音

15/06/2022

Yours truly at WNWN dug through some Taiwan government websites. Welcome to our mini data explainer.

Yesterday, Taiwan's Minister of Economics said that the 2025 goal of generating 20% of the nation's electricity from renewables is now pushed to 2026. Today, we look at what’s in Taiwan’s growing mix of renewable energy:

In 2021, almost half of our renewable energy came from solar (45.6%). A fifth from waste-to-energy (20.7%). The rest are hydro (19.9%), wind (2.9%), biomass (0.97%), and a tiny bit from geothermal. These RE, together they make just 5.99% of Taiwan's electricity that same year. So while that's a ways to go till the 20% goal, it’s kickstarted the sector here.

Taiwan’s current push is in solar and wind. Our solar more than doubled from 2018 to 2020. Graph 1 is a historical chart of Taiwan’s renewables generation. You might remember a certain movie from 2006 and a certain global agreement in 2015.

But off-shore wind is where it is at.

On-shore wind's been around since at least 2002, but in 2017, off-shore wind began to appear in public data. In 2020 it more than doubled and continues to rise as more co's are installing off-shore wind farms in Taiwan.

All raw data came from the Ministry of Economic Affair.
Here https://moeaboe.gov.tw/ECW/populace/web_book/wHandWebReports_File.ashx?type=pdf&book_code=M_CH&chapter_code=L&report_code=01

And here https://moeaboe.gov.tw/ECW/populace/web_book/wHandWebReports_File.ashx?type=pdf&book_code=M_CH&chapter_code=L&report_code=01

We hope you enjoyed our WNWN data explainer. If you'd like to nerd out on TW's energy, here is a cool database that goes into detail: https://www.esist.org.tw/Database

Hope ya'll be listening to the new episodes!!

07/06/2021

What's this?! We have on our hands a cross-over episode!
Nate Maynard just hosted an interview for Ghost Island Media 鬼島之音's other show, .
The Taiwan Take is our team's go-to program for Taiwanese culture, current affairs, and in-depth conversations on global issues, and we were thrilled to work together with them!
Our guest today is Dafydd Fell, author of the latest book: Taiwan's Green Parties: Alternative Politics in Taiwan. N8 and Dafydd talk about Taiwan in the 90s, the Global Green network, and the real social impact of Asia's oldest Green Party: 綠黨 (臺灣).

🎧Listen to the ep wherever you get your podcasts! 👇
Apple http://bit.ly/wnwn-41-apple
Spotify http://bit.ly/wnwn-41-spotify
Google http://bit.ly/wnwn-41-google
Stitcher http://bit.ly/wnwn-41-stitcher
Youtube http://bit.ly/wnwn-41-youtube
All additional platforms https://ghostisland.media/

We build podcasts with breakout voices and brands | 熱血的小島 新時代的音波

22/04/2021

We're just teething! We're 2 years old! It's been a hot two years since this trash show was launched on 2019 as a sarcastic way to fight greenwashing.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
🎂 Birthday fund 🎂 https://www.patreon.com/wastenotwhynot
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Episode 39 is also out! “Is Seaspiracy worth Seaing?” takes on the new 2021 Netflix documentary that's trending all over social media and press coverages.