Taiwan should enshrine in law its goal of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, environmental experts said yesterday, calling on lawmakers to urgently pass a climate change bill that is being deliberated.
Stipulating net-zero targets in law would establish a governmental duty to act on climate change regardless of which political party is in power, said Hsu Huang-hsiung (許晃雄), the director of Academia Sinica’s Center for Environmental Changes.
A climate law would help the government carry out the complex efforts needed to tackle climate change, such as climate impact studies, policy design and carbon reduction technology research, he said.
Photo: Wu Po-hsuan, Taipei Times
Creating legislation to reach net-zero emissions goals would put Taiwan in league with 137 other governments that have made similar pledges, which account for about 90 percent of the world’s GDP and 88 percent of emissions, he added.
The UK was the first state to make achieving carbon neutrality a legal obligation, Hsu said.
The UK’s Climate Change Act 2008, which deems dealing with climate change a strategic goal — established an comprehensive regulatory system to reduce carbon emissions while growing the economy, he said.
Carbon neutrality laws can take many forms and not all of them are as comprehensive and technically oriented as the British law, Environmental Rights Foundation researcher Ni Mao-ting (倪茂庭) said.
Climate change laws in Germany and Denmark are brief documents of 10 to 20 articles pointing the government in the right direction without specifying a method that must be utilized, Ni said.
In contrast, the British law offers detailed guidance on matters including the principles concerning carbon trading, he said.
Carbon taxes and emissions trading systems are also important policy instruments that raise transaction costs for emission-generating activities to curb their use, Ni said.
According to the World Bank’s State and Trends of Carbon Pricing 2021 report, the price of carbon varies greatly in the 64 carbon pricing systems established by governments across the globe, he said.
Last year, Sweden had the highest carbon price at US$137 per tonne, while Switzerland had the second-highest at US$101 per tonne, Ni said.
The EU had a carbon price of US$50 per tonne, South Korea US$16 per tonne and Japan US$3 per tonne, while Poland and Ukraine had the lowest prices at less than US$1 per tonne, he said.
However, the EU’s carbon prices this year rose to more than US$70 per tonne, approaching US$100 per tonne at times, Ni said, adding that analysts expect prices to increase further.
The second flight of F-16V jets from the US is expected to arrive at Chihhang Air Base in Taitung today. Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) on Friday said that the new fighters would arrive in Taiwan soon. The Air Force Command yesterday issued a media notice for a filming session scheduled for today, effectively confirming the arrival. It is the second part of an order for 66 F-16Vs to arrive in Taiwan following the delivery of the first two aircraft last month. Three jets are expected this time, sources said. The three aircraft in the latest batch are single-seat models, bearing military serial
Support for Democratic Progressive Party Legislator and Taipei mayoral candidate Puma Shen (沈伯洋) reached 52.6 percent, compared with 35.3 percent for Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), a poll released yesterday by the Strategy and Public Research Institute of Taiwan showed. The poll was held after the candidates’ first debate on Saturday. It showed support for Shen surpassing 50 percent for the first time, with the gap between the two widening to 17.3 percentage points. A breakdown of voting intentions by district found that Shen led Chiang in 11 of Taipei’s 12 districts. His strongest
Former China Central Television (CCTV) talk show host Cheng Wanjun (程萬軍) yesterday sought political asylum in Taiwan, a day after arriving at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport on a connecting flight from Thailand. In a video posted on X, Cheng said he was appealing to Taiwan to grant him temporary asylum on humanitarian grounds while he sought permanent resettlement in a third country. Cheng said he previously served as editor-in-chief of the journal Law and Life and hosted legal affairs programs on state-run CCTV. He said he ran afoul of Chinese authorities in 2019 after a video surfaced showing him discussing rulers whose actions
WORRIES PILE UP: The planned extension would generate nearly 10 million cubic meters of excavated soil, the disposal of which has not been explained, a former EPA official said Yilan County residents, backed by civic groups, on Wednesday filed an administrative lawsuit to overturn the environmental impact assessment (EIA) approval for the Yilan-bound high-speed rail (HSR) extension. They filed the lawsuit after the Executive Yuan on Sept. 11 rejected an administrative appeal. Former Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) deputy minister and lawyer Thomas Chan (詹順貴) said the project’s EIA review was one of the hastiest he had ever seen during his 30-year career in environmental law. Construction of the line would generate nearly 10 million cubic meters of excavated earth and rock, the disposal of which has not yet been explained to the
RSS