Sat, Aug 15, 2026 page3

• Carbon fees should aid disadvantaged: advocates

  MOST AT RISK: Taiwan has collected NT$4.97 billion in carbon fees, which should be used for groups most affected by pollution and climate change, a lawmaker said

  • By Wu Po-hsuan and Jonathan Chin / Staff reporter, with staff writer
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  Environmental advocates on Wednesday urged the government to raise corporate carbon reduction targets and prioritize utilization of carbon revenue to support vulnerable groups rather than to subsidize businesses.

  Civic groups and experts were invited to a public hearing held by the Legislative Yuan’s Social Welfare and Environmental Hygiene Committee on the Ministry of Environment’s plans to revise carbon regulations to ensure procedural fairness, facilitate industrial transformation and reduce carbon emissions.

  As of May, the government had collected NT$4.97 billion (US$155.1 million) in carbon fees from the 461 factories (240 companies) since the scheme was introduced last year.

  

  Environmental advocates attend a public hearing hosted by the Legislative Yuan’s Social Welfare and Environmental Hygiene Committee in Taipei on Wednesday.

  Photo: Wu Po-hsuan, Taipei Times

  Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lin Yueh-chin (林月琴) said a system should be created to ensure the carbon proceeds would be used for groups most affected by pollution and climate change.

  Newborns, pregnant women, people with chronic respiratory illnesses and elderly people should benefit from government revenue generated by the fees, she said.

  DPP Legislator Wang Cheng-hsu (王正旭) urged the Ministry of Environment and the Ministry of Labor to collaborate on using the funds to help workers whose livelihoods were negatively impacted by the carbon fees.

  Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Wang Yu-min (王育敏) said that regulators might need to strengthen the mechanisms utilized to verify commercial entities’ claimed reductions in their carbon footprint.

  Businesses that did not follow through on their sustainability programs should not be allowed to benefit from carbon fee deductibles, she said.

  In 2024, the Earth’s average temperature increased by more than 1.5°C compared with pre-industrial levels, crossing the projected inflection point for a global climate catastrophe, said Wei Kuo-yen (魏國彥), former minister of the Environmental Protection Administration, the predecessor of the environment ministry.

  Taiwan is situated on the edge of the Western Pacific Warm Pool, the warmest oceanic body of water in the world, which would give rise to increasingly frequent super El Nino events, he said.

  This means the nation would face extreme weather in its severest forms, Wei said.

  The difficulties involved in achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050 are dwarfed by the next global target of negative emissions, Academia Sinica Institute of Economics researcher Hsiao Tai-chi (蕭代基) said.

  Reducing emissions and removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere would likely require the government to impose taxes on energy use and carbon instead of the current fee scheme, he said.

  The revenue collected from these policy measures should ideally be allocated to disadvantaged groups, society in general or some form of national development fund, he said.

  Mom Loves Taiwan Association secretary-general Huang Pin-han (黃品涵) said the state-run Greenhouse Gas Management Fund used less than 80 percent of its operational budget.

  The central government should utilize carbon fees to develop and guide local governments and the private sector in deploying technologies that mitigate green house emissions, she said.

  The fund should incorporate measures that encourage local adaptability to sustainability-related challenges on a permanent institutional level, she said.

  Carbon Dividend Alliance cofounder Pan Han-shen (潘翰聲) said Taiwan should embrace a true carbon tax that enables the government to fully control the tax revenues.

  The current carbon fee scheme imposes significant limits on the subsidies the government could fund, he said.

  Citing an example, Pan said there is a subsidy for buying new air control units, but no funds for environmentally friendly screens, eaves, softscaping or fans, he said.

  Deputy Minister of Environment Hsieh Yein-rui (謝燕儒) said the government would take into consideration the opinions presented by experts and lawmakers in revising regulations governing carbon fees.

  The ministry’s purpose in instituting carbon fees is to encourage compliance with sustainability goals, not increase government income, he said.
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