The government last week announced its road map for the nation to reach carbon neutrality by 2050, with plans for a net zero emissions framework, technological research and development (R&D), and climate legislation. The announcement represents an ambitious goal for the nation, but achieving it by 2050 would be a major challenge.
At a news conference on Wednesday, the National Development Council (NDC) said the government had set emissions goals for architectural projects, transportation, industrial development, electricity generation and carbon-negative technology in various phases. The council also unveiled the government’s strategies for transforming energy supply, industrial structure, social systems and people’s lives over the next three decades to achieve carbon neutrality.
Through tech R&D and climate legislation, the council said the government seeks to make renewable energy account for 60 to 70 percent of the nation’s energy mix by 2050. Other energy sources would include thermal power generated with carbon capture technology, which would account for 20 to 27 percent of the nation’s energy mix; hydrogen power, which would make up 9 to 12 percent; and 1 percent from hydroelectric power.
To achieve its policy goals, the government aims to invest NT$900 billion (US$31.35 billion) by 2030 to accelerate the deployment and promotion of renewable and clean energy, as well as smart grid and energy storage applications, while continuing R&D of new technologies related to energy, the council said.
While the road map marks Taiwan’s long-term vision for carbon neutrality and affirms the nation’s climate policy as a growing number of countries accelerate their efforts to reach the same goal, it also sends an important message to the public: Challenges abound on the road ahead.
First, only 5.5 percent of the nation’s energy supply came from renewable sources in 2020, Bureau of Energy data showed. It would require great effort to bring that figure to 20 percent by 2025, as the government has previously targeted, and even greater effort to reach 60 to 70 percent by 2050, let alone while trying to decrease the proportion of energy imports to 50 percent or less by 2050, compared with about 98 percent at present.
Second, the carbon neutrality plan requires participation from not just the government, but also the private sector and everyone in Taiwan. It also demands changes to energy consumption in every aspect of the economy, as well as more work on decarbonizing manufacturing and energy infrastructure. In other words, getting to net zero emissions means that industries, businesses and the public should no longer expect cheap electricity.
It is strange that most people still expect inexpensive electricity when the nation is almost entirely dependent on energy imports; just Tuesday the Ministry of Economic Affairs was still unable to decide whether to adjust electricity rates. The nation’s low electricity rates have always been considered an obstacle to energy transition and achieving net zero emissions, and it would remain so if such a mindset persists.
Third, from the Environmental Protection Administration’s proposal in October last year to amend the Greenhouse Gas Reduction and Management Act (溫室氣體減量及管理法) to the NDC’s announcement on Wednesday, what people have seen is the government working out a clear direction for moving toward net zero emissions.
Missing from these plans are concrete measures on how the government wants manufacturers and big carbon emitters to cut their emissions by 2030. The government’s policies lack specific goals for energy-consuming industries to adopt zero-carbon production methods and install carbon capture and storage facilities, which would hamper their capacity adjustment and manufacturing transformation.
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