Taiwan and the UK have joined hands to launch a report, titled Carbon pricing options for Taiwan, and would further collaborate on climate action, the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) said, as the nation prepares to collect a levy on carbon emissions.
The report was the result of its cooperation with the British Office Taipei, the EPA said in a news release on Friday.
The two sides commissioned the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science to evaluate carbon pricing systems for Taiwan, it said.
Josh Burke, policy fellow at the institute and one of the report’s authors, had visited Taiwan early this year to share information on the UK’s carbon pricing policy, it added.
The 49-page report was published on the institute’s Web site on Tuesday.
As a small, export-oriented economy that imports fossil fuels for most of its energy demand, Taiwan faces a range of challenges in reaching its target of lowering greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent from 2005 levels by 2050, let alone the more ambitious emissions reductions targets needed to align with global ambitions under the Paris Agreement, the report said.
The report recommends that Taiwan start with a simple carbon levy, initially at a low level, but with a clear trajectory to increase the levy to levels required to meet international climate goals under the Paris Agreement.
Companies would be prepared for such a levy, as opposed to an emissions trading system, because they are familiar with environmental protection fees, it added.
The levy should cover large emitters in the manufacturing and electricity sectors, the report said, adding that the electricity sector in 2017 accounted for 59 percent of Taiwan’s carbon emissions.
If designed well, carbon pricing alongside complementary policies would help Taiwan reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, while growing its economy and playing a part in the international effort to combat climate change, it said.
There is considerable room for Taiwan to implement a carbon price starting from NT$300 per tonne of carbon dioxide, the report said, citing a 2018 survey that showed that on average, respondents were willing to accept a 13.2 percent electricity price hike if that were necessary for integrating more renewables into the power mix.
A carbon pricing policy can be improved by enhancing companies’ capacities to participate and ensuring their early engagement to address concerns, the report said.
In preparing draft amendments to the Greenhouse Gas Reduction and Management Act (溫室氣體減量及管理法), the EPA is mulling collecting a carbon levy of NT$110 per tonne of carbon dioxide, local media reported in October.
The draft amendments would be forwarded to the Executive Yuan next year, the EPA said at that time.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods