Taiwan said on Wednesday it would use countries in Africa to get its first carbon credits for international trade, a move seen as part of the nation’s long-term bid to participate in the UN.
Barred from UN membership by China, Taiwan plans to obtain carbon credits by setting up solar and biomass companies in cash-strapped African countries, the environmental protection agency (EPA) said ahead of a summit in Taipei with climate leaders from eight nations.
African countries, including Taiwan’s diplomatic allies Burkina Faso, Gambia, Swaziland and Sao Tome and Principe, would get credits through the UN Clean Development Mechanism and pass them on to Taiwan, an EPA official said.
“Our country, if it can meet needs in Africa by assisting in the investment of solar energy or bio-energy to get carbon credits, in the future it can exchange them in international carbon markets,” the EPA said in a statement.
Efforts to join the world carbon trade would boost Taiwan’s profile as the nation tries to win approval for some sort of UN role that has been repeatedly blocked by China.
“It’s a first step and they will succeed eventually,” said Nathan Liu (劉廣華), associate international affairs professor at Ming Chuan University in Taiwan. “This is a trial balloon. If China doesn’t raise its voice, it’s an encouragement for Taiwan.”
China blocks Taiwan from any international bodies that require statehood as a condition to join.
As a consequence, Taiwan is not part of the Kyoto Protocol, the UN’s main weapon in the fight against climate change, and faces no UN-mandated emissions reduction targets.
But the EPA said on Tuesday the government would aim to cut emissions to 2005 levels by 2020 anyway, a reduction of at least 30 percent from projected levels.
Kyoto obliges nearly 40 industrialized nations to cut emissions. Under Kyoto, efforts to cut greenhouse gases can be outsourced to emerging countries through investment in clean energy projects registered under the Clean Development Mechanism.
Investors receive offsets in return, called Certified Emissions Reductions (CERs), which can be used toward emissions reduction goals or sold for profit. December delivery CERs were trading around 11.30 euros (US$15.56) a tonne on Wednesday.
In 2006, the International Energy Agency ranked Taiwan 22nd in the world for fuel-based carbon dioxide emissions at 270 million tonnes per year. It was No. 16 in terms of per-capita emissions, higher than Japan and South Korea.
Major carbon dioxide polluters include Taiwan Cement Corp (台泥), Taiwan Power Co (台電) and Formosa Plastics Corp (台塑), the EPA says.
It has not estimated how many credits Taiwan would seek from Africa or how much it planned to invest in those countries.
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has said he wants Taiwan’s annual carbon dioxide emissions to fall to 214 million tonnes by 2025 and half that by 2050.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day