On March 30, the National Development Council and five ministries released a road map for achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, detailing four major transformations, including energy transformation, and 12 key strategies for achieving the goal.
The issues involved are complicated and intermeshed. Finance, the lifeblood of the real economy, is certain to play an important role. Some international examples might clarify how it might work in practice.
The biggest highlight of the COP26 climate summit in November last year was the establishment of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, with its commitment to building new business models that lend or invest in net-zero assets to achieve climate neutrality by 2050, with a medium-term target for 2030. More than 450 financial institutions — with assets of up to US$130 trillion — have so far signed up to the program.
Alliance members have committed to considering their clients’ emissions targets as their own. Financial institutions are to take their total emissions and emission levels as the inspection standard, meaning that in addition to reducing carbon emissions at their own business offices, they must consider the emissions data of customers and investments. The aim is to drive all of society toward net-zero emissions.
Starting in June, the European Banking Authority (EBA) is to require banks to disclose their “green asset ratio” as a key performance indicator of sustainable finance. The higher their percentage of investments and loans supporting the transformation to green energy, the higher their performance rating.
Specific EBA projects include the manufacturing of equipment using renewable resources, the manufacturing of transportation vehicles using low-carbon processes, the manufacturing of energy-efficient residential equipment and hydrogen production equipment, power generation using renewable resources, energy storage, low-energy buildings, low-energy data centers and the removal of carbon dioxide.
The EBA is also assessing whether banks that lend to companies with high carbon emissions and high energy consumption should calculate the loans using a higher risk weighting, which would increase the cost of such loans.
The EU is encouraging banks to lend to the green energy industry and has begun to call in loans to industries with high carbon emissions — a two-pronged approach.
That is why Bill Gates in November last year said that he and his foundation had divested stocks related to fossil fuels, as those companies would soon lose value.
The theme of this year’s International Earth Day, which falls on Friday next week, is “Invest in Our Planet.” In addition to highlighting the seriousness of environmental issues such as climate change, it is hoped that finance would lead other industries in facilitating energy transition.
Honda Chen is head of the Taiwan Academy of Banking and Finance’s sustainable finance office.
Translated by Lin Lee-kai
The image was oddly quiet. No speeches, no flags, no dramatic announcements — just a Chinese cargo ship cutting through arctic ice and arriving in Britain in October. The Istanbul Bridge completed a journey that once existed only in theory, shaving weeks off traditional shipping routes. On paper, it was a story about efficiency. In strategic terms, it was about timing. Much like politics, arriving early matters. Especially when the route, the rules and the traffic are still undefined. For years, global politics has trained us to watch the loud moments: warships in the Taiwan Strait, sanctions announced at news conferences, leaders trading
Eighty-seven percent of Taiwan’s energy supply this year came from burning fossil fuels, with more than 47 percent of that from gas-fired power generation. The figures attracted international attention since they were in October published in a Reuters report, which highlighted the fragility and structural challenges of Taiwan’s energy sector, accumulated through long-standing policy choices. The nation’s overreliance on natural gas is proving unstable and inadequate. The rising use of natural gas does not project an image of a Taiwan committed to a green energy transition; rather, it seems that Taiwan is attempting to patch up structural gaps in lieu of
The saga of Sarah Dzafce, the disgraced former Miss Finland, is far more significant than a mere beauty pageant controversy. It serves as a potent and painful contemporary lesson in global cultural ethics and the absolute necessity of racial respect. Her public career was instantly pulverized not by a lapse in judgement, but by a deliberate act of racial hostility, the flames of which swiftly encircled the globe. The offensive action was simple, yet profoundly provocative: a 15-second video in which Dzafce performed the infamous “slanted eyes” gesture — a crude, historically loaded caricature of East Asian features used in Western
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators have twice blocked President William Lai’s (賴清德) special defense budget bill in the Procedure Committee, preventing it from entering discussion or review. Meanwhile, KMT Legislator Chen Yu-jen (陳玉珍) proposed amendments that would enable lawmakers to use budgets for their assistants at their own discretion — with no requirement for receipts, staff registers, upper or lower headcount limits, or usage restrictions — prompting protest from legislative assistants. After the new legislature convened in February, the KMT joined forces with the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) and, leveraging their slim majority, introduced bills that undermine the Constitution, disrupt constitutional
RSS