A carbon-credit trading platform to encourage people to replace aging scooters with electric ones is to start on Friday next week, the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) said yesterday.
The scheme rewards people with one carbon credit certificate and NT$2,000 for each electric motorbike they purchase to replace a conventional scooter that is 14 years or older. The credits can be traded on dedicated platforms and yield annual dividends.
Institutions and government agencies are purchasing the certificates for different amounts, with the Hsinchu Science Park Administration offering NT$1,500 per certificate and the Hsinchu County Environmental Protection Bureau offering NT$2,000 per certificate, the EPA said.
Photo: Lo Chi, Taipei Times
A gasoline scooter produces about 2.3 tonnes of carbon emissions over its lifetime, which can be removed from the environment if it is replaced with an electric scooter, it said.
Those who replace their scooters before the end of the year can apply on https://epamotor.epa.gov.tw to receive a certificate, as well as choose a platform to use it on, it said.
Once a transaction is verified by the EPA, payment for the certificate would be issued within one month, it added.
“So far this year, 5,700 people have sold certificates directly to the EPA for NT$1,000 each,” EPA Climate Change Office Director Tsai Ling-yi (蔡玲儀) said.
The Hsinchu Science Park Administration has said it plans to purchase 100,000 electric-scooter carbon certificates over the next two years at NT$1,500 per certificate, and the Hsinchu County Environmental Protection Bureau estimates it would purchase 400 certificates for NT$2,000 each.
As 40,000 to 50,000 electric scooters are purchased and registered in Hsinchu annually, the number of certificates the county and science park plan to acquire would meet public demand, it said.
“There are 14 million scooters and motorcycles in Taiwan, but only 4 percent are electric,” EPA Deputy Minister Shen Chih-hsiu (沈志修) said. “If we are to reach the government’s carbon goals by 2050, we need to get all gasoline scooters built before 2007 off the road.”
Shen said that the EPA was focusing first on older two-wheel motor vehicles, but would eventually also promote the purchase of hybrid and electric cars.
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