British officials yesterday encouraged Taiwan to speed up legislation addressing greenhouse gas emissions to lead the region in tackling the problem.
“Taiwan is well positioned to benefit from the transition to a low carbon economy,” Thomas Phipps, policy officer for Asia Pacific, Climate Change and Energy Group at the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, told a media luncheon.
The British Trade and Culture Office (BTCO), the UK’s representative office in Taiwan, held a seminar on offshore wind and marine energy on Monday, bringing together nine British experts from 12 organizations for discussions with their Taiwanese counterparts.
Phipps, one of the experts, also visited the Ministry of Economic Affairs, the Environmental Protection Administration and Taiwan Power Co.
Phipps told reporters that he discussed the experience of the British government in tacking climate change, adding that Taiwanese policymakers were very keen to learn and understood the need act immediately.
Phipps said a Taiwanese -government-proposed draft greenhouse gas emission reduction act, which is still being reviewed in the legislature, shared many similarities with the UK’s Climate Change Act and “looks very positive” in helping the country to cut emissions.
The draft bill has been stalled in the legislature since 2008.
Phipps said the bill would help Taiwan gain access to the international carbon market by setting a domestic trading emission scheme and provide greater certainty encouraging the private sector to invest in renewable energy.
The British government has focused much of its efforts on changing the economy from a high-carbon economy to low-carbon in view of the slow progress in reaching a post-Kyoto agreement to keep increases in temperature below 2oC, Phipps said.
A global deal remains the best means to achieve that goal, he said.
As more countries move toward a low-carbon footprint, it creates a huge market for low-carbon goods and service, Phipps said.
“Along with South Korea, Taiwan has the potential to lead the transition in East Asia,” he said.
Asked about the UK’s position on Taiwan’s proposal to participate in meetings and activities of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, BTCO director David Campbell said his office’s position was in line with the EU, which is to “look at Taiwan’s participation in organizations which it believes are in the global interest and in the EU’s interests as well.”
Campbell said the matter went beyond the “question of -participation, or what level of participation,” citing the example of the UK’s commitments to the Kyoto Protocol.
The UK didn’t act on climate change only because it is a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol, he said.
“We decided that it is our own interests as a country to take actions that goes further beyond the international consensus existing at the moment,” he said.
“The decisions you take here would have an impact beyond Taiwan. One of the most positive things Taiwan that can do is to showcase exactly the changes and movements you are making in this area. It would be very influential,” Campbell said.
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