The price of flights to Europe may rise after the EU starts including the aviation industry in the carbon emissions trading system (ETS) next year, a research report by the Civil Aeronautics Administration showed.
Previously, the ETS only applied to a few sectors in the EU, including power stations, combustion plants, oil refineries and steel works as well as factories producing glass, bricks and several other materials.
However, in 2009 the EU said that the system would apply to the aviation industry as well, including international carriers operating to, from and within Europe. The policy is scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1 next year.
The administration said each airline will be given a tradable emissions allowance based on its past record. While airlines will be able to use 85 percent of their allowance for free, they are required to purchase the remaining 15 percent under the new scheme.
The aviation authority estimated that China Airlines and EVA Airways, the nation’s two largest carriers, would need to pay NT$210 million (US$6.99 million) and NT$150 million respectively for their emissions permits. However, the airlines could reduce the amount they need to pay by adopting measures to cut carbon emissions.
The administration added that the annual emissions limit set by the EU is 97 percent of the average amount of carbon dioxide emitted by the industry between 2004 and 2006, but the EU aims to cut emissions by lowering the percentage to 95 percent in 2013.
If an airline exceeds their allowance, it will have to purchase an additional allowance from other trading firms and face a penalty of 100 euros (US$138) per tonne of carbon dioxide.
Last week, members of the UN’s International Civil Aviation Organization, including the US, China and two dozen other nations, urged the EU not to include non-EU carriers in its plan.
They said the plan would infringe a “cardinal principle of state sovereignty” by setting its charges on the distance flown in each flight.
The International Air Transport Association, which represents 230 airlines, also said that the carbon plan would impact on airlines’ profits and make it harder to invest in cleaner aircraft.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
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