The government has again failed to set carbon fees for high-emissions companies after a meeting on Friday which looked at various fee scenarios, with one official expecting that one or two additional meetings would be needed before a consensus is reached.
The government had originally planned to set a carbon fee rate no later than in the first quarter of this year, when it began to calculate fee-liable carbon emissions to pave the way for the collection of carbon fees next year.
At Friday’s meeting of the carbon fee review committee, which was its fourth, committee members looked at data on the impact of different fees on the economy.
Photo: Chen Chia-yi, Taipei Times
The data were based on six different carbon fees, ranging from NT$100 to NT$1,000 per metric ton of carbon dioxide equivalent.
The lowest fee of NT$100 per metric ton would lead to a 0.04 percent fall in GDP, while a NT$300 fee would cost the economy 0.12 percent of GDP and a NT$500 fee would lead to a 0.2 percent fall in GDP, the Ministry of Environment said.
Every 0.1 percent in GDP is equal to about NT$23.5 billion (US$723,634) based on last year’s GDP.
The impact could be lower if a carbon leakage risk adjustment mechanism was applied to lower the chargeable emissions of certain industries at risk of moving production to places with laxer emission restrictions to avoid carbon fees or taxes.
In a statement issued following the meeting, the ministry said the committee members agreed that the macroeconomic impact of fees might be limited, but they still called for further industry-specific assessments.
Minister of Environment Peng Chi-ming (彭啟明) on Friday said that levying carbon fees was expected to have only a small impact on the economy, “lower than an electricity rate hike.”
Peng said it was not uncommon, as seen in other countries, to introduce incremental increases in carbon fees to assist enterprises to gradually become familiar with the reporting and planning needed to decarbonize.
He expected that it would take another one or two meetings before the rate would be set.
Data compiled by the ministry based on 2022 emissions showed that 550 emitters meet the 25,000-metric-ton threshold and would be paying a fee for emissions exceeding the threshold.
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