Taiwan has set a nationally determined contributions (NDC) target of 36 percent to 40 percent by 2035 ahead of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change’s (UNFCCC) 30th Conference of the Parties (COP30) in line with the international community, Minister of Environment Peng Chi-ming (彭啟明) said yesterday.
The COP30 is to be held in Belem, Brazil, from Monday next week to Nov. 21. As of Thursday, 72 member nations of the UNFCCC had already proposed their 2035 NDC target as required by the Paris Agreement.
Taiwan is willing to join the world in addressing climate issues, as it is facing threats from extreme weather and its carbon emissions amount to more than 200 million tonnes per year, accounting for about 0.5 percent of the global total, Peng said.
Photo: screen grab from the Ministry of Environment Web site
Taiwan’s carbon emissions continued to decrease over the past three years and dropped by more than 2 percent from 2023 to last year, while global emissions rose by 2.3 percent last year, according to the UN Environment Program’s emissions gap report, he said.
That showed Taiwan is on the right path to net zero, he added.
Although Taiwan is not a UNFCCC member nation and has not been invited to COP30, it has set NDC targets in line with the international community, and would share its experience and achievements with the world in other ways, Peng said.
The national decarbonization action plan was formed through interagency efforts over the past year under the guidance of Vice Premier Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君), he said, adding that the latest NDC targets were submitted to the Presidential Office’s National Climate Change Countermeasures Committee in January and approved by the Cabinet this week.
The latest NDC targets, or “NDC3.0,” aim to reduce emissions by 26 percent to 30 percent by 2030 and 36 percent to 40 percent by 2035, compared with the baseline year of 2005, Peng said.
“This is a challenge that we would consider a ‘moonshot.’ It is difficult and we will spare no effort,” he said, adding that social consensus, industrial support and public-private collaboration would be necessary.
More than 4,300 people participated in discussions about the establishment of NDC3.0, Peng said, adding that such public engagement aligned with the COP30’s Global Mutirao initiative.
Peng had attended COP meetings 11 times before he assumed his post in the government, he said, adding that he is “the only environment minister in the world not invited to the UN climate conference,” as Taiwan is not a UNFCCC member.
“I hope that in the future we can contribute more directly within the international community,” he said.
To achieve the 2035 NDC target, Taiwan would seek to limit its national power demand to 350 billion kilowatt-hours per year by 2035, while low-carbon fuel transition would be stepped up across industries not powered by electricity, Climate Change Administration Director-General Tsai Ling-yi (蔡玲儀) said.
Taiwan would also seek to reduce coal-fired power to 9 percent and increase renewable energy use to 36 percent by 2035, with the national carbon emission factor of electricity production forecast to drop to 0.241kg of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilowatt-hour by 2035, she said.
Asked whether the use of liquefied natural gas (LNG) might add to carbon emissions, Peng said that although LNG is a fossil fuel like coal, it functions as a transitional energy in many nations, as it produces much less pollution than coal.
Such a strategy is indispensable as Taiwan, unlike many European nations, has limited land to construct green energy facilities in the short term and has not reached a social consensus on adopting nuclear energy such as in France, he said.
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