As Taiwan prepares to implement its own carbon pricing system, international experts attending the Global Carbon Market Forum in Taipei on Thursday discussed how international carbon credits are used in the carbon pricing schemes adopted by their countries.
At the forum held on the last day of the Net Zero City Expo, the experts outlined the frameworks and practices of different carbon credit markets in Europe, Japan, Singapore and China.
Many discussed the use of carbon credits from the international voluntary carbon market in each of their own country’s carbon pricing systems.
Joyce Goh (吳佳佳), the commercial director of Singapore’s carbon exchange Climate Impact X, said the financial hub uses a carbon tax to control the country’s emissions, and carbon tax-liable companies could offset up to 5 percent of their taxable emissions using international carbon credits.
The tax has increased from an initial S$5 (US$3.71) per tonne in 2019 to S$25 this year, Goh said.
“And in 2026 it is expected to further rise to S$45, and in 2030 to about S$60 to S$80,” she added.
Saki Kawakubo, an expert from the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s Carbon Credit Market Office, said that as the Japanese government aims to reduce carbon emissions while growing its economy, “the government would hesitate to accept international credits, which [are believed to have little to] contribute to the domestic economy” if a mandatory carbon pricing scheme were established.
Japan has not established a mandatory pricing scheme requiring major emitters to reduce their emissions or pay carbon tax, but its “J-credit” system encourages enterprises to set their own targets and trade the emissions, Kawakubo said.
London Stock Exchange Group analyst Jin Boyang, who is well acquainted with China’s carbon credit market, said that, based on China’s experience, oversupply of voluntary credits is a risk if an offset limit is not imposed or a well-researched methodology for what counts as quality carbon credits is not applied.
Jurgen Landgrebe, head of Division V, which is responsible for climate protection, energy and emissions trading at the German Environment Agency, said that voluntary international carbon credits “will not be eligible in the EU mandatory scheme in the future.”
In the past, a lot of different carbon offset units that were similar to voluntary carbon credits were allowed in the EU’s mandatory trading scheme.
However, Landgrebe said that ultimately “we lost our priority, because you cannot sell your emission deductions and reduce at the same time,” he said.
“The offset is a good starting point ... but it’s not the solution,” Landgrebe said.
“You have to have a high ambition” to reduce carbon emissions, he added.
The EU Emission Trading System, approved by the European parliament in April last year, and which took effect on Jan. 1 this year, is a typical mandatory carbon pricing system that puts a cap on the total level of emissions and allows those industries with low emissions to sell their extra credits to larger emitters whose emissions exceed the cap.
Although a carbon fee rate has yet to be set, Taiwanese companies that emit more than 25,000 tonnes a year are expected to have to pay carbon fees starting next year.
Draft carbon fee regulations, announced in December last year, propose that the use of international carbon credits would be capped at 5 percent of a company’s total emissions from the preceding year.
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