Chilean President Michelle Bachelet enacted new environmental tax legislation on Friday making his nation the first in South America to tax carbon dioxide emissions.
Part of a broad tax reform, Chile’s carbon tax will target the power sector, particularly generators operating thermal plants with installed capacity equal to or larger than 50 megawatts.
The installations will be charged US$5 per tonne of carbon dioxide released. Thermal plants fueled by biomass and smaller installations will be exempt.
The new tax is meant to force power producers to gradually move to cleaner sources to help reduce the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions and meet its voluntary target of cutting these gases by 20 percent of 2007 levels by 2020.
Earlier this year, Mexico imposed a tax on the sale of several fossil fuels, based on their carbon content, averaging US$3 per tonne of carbon dioxide.
In Mexico, companies are able to use carbon credits to reduce their tax bills, a provision not considered in Chile.
Central-American nation Costa Rica also has an environmental tax, but it targets gasoline sales.
About 80 percent of Chile’s energy is based on fossil fuels, mostly imported oil and coal.
Chile’s government will start measuring carbon dioxide emissions from thermal power plants in 2017 and the new tax is set to be charged from 2018.
Four companies are expected to pay the bulk of the new tax: Endesa, AES Gener, Colbun and E.CL.
The companies have said that the tax will raise the price of electricity. They have also complained that other industrial sectors were not targeted.
The government said it expects to collect about US$160 million from the carbon tax, a relatively small share of the forecast US$8.3 billion in additional revenue the broader tax reform will bring in.
Carbon pricing, largely rejected by the US and struggling in Europe, is suddenly all the rage, with China leading the charge.
The world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter plans to establish a national market for carbon permit trading in 2016 and has already launched seven regional pilot markets.
Boosters of carbon pricing policies say that once China sets a national price on carbon, others will follow.
“Once China goes live, that will establish a major price [signal] that will affect all the other markets and all other [carbon] prices,” said Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
China’s top economic planning agency has announced that its proposed carbon trading scheme is set to cover 40 percent of its economy and be worth about US$65 billion.
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday said that its research institute has launched its first advanced artificial intelligence (AI) large language model (LLM) using traditional Chinese, with technology assistance from Nvidia Corp. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), said the LLM, FoxBrain, is expected to improve its data analysis capabilities for smart manufacturing, and electric vehicle and smart city development. An LLM is a type of AI trained on vast amounts of text data and uses deep learning techniques, particularly neural networks, to process and generate language. They are essential for building and improving AI-powered servers. Nvidia provided assistance
DOMESTIC SUPPLY: The probe comes as Donald Trump has called for the repeal of the US$52.7 billion CHIPS and Science Act, which the US Congress passed in 2022 The Office of the US Trade Representative is to hold a hearing tomorrow into older Chinese-made “legacy” semiconductors that could heap more US tariffs on chips from China that power everyday goods from cars to washing machines to telecoms equipment. The probe, which began during former US president Joe Biden’s tenure in December last year, aims to protect US and other semiconductor producers from China’s massive state-driven buildup of domestic chip supply. A 50 percent US tariff on Chinese semiconductors began on Jan. 1. Legacy chips use older manufacturing processes introduced more than a decade ago and are often far simpler than
STILL HOPEFUL: Delayed payment of NT$5.35 billion from an Indian server client sent its earnings plunging last year, but the firm expects a gradual pickup ahead Asustek Computer Inc (華碩), the world’s No. 5 PC vendor, yesterday reported an 87 percent slump in net profit for last year, dragged by a massive overdue payment from an Indian cloud service provider. The Indian customer has delayed payment totaling NT$5.35 billion (US$162.7 million), Asustek chief financial officer Nick Wu (吳長榮) told an online earnings conference. Asustek shipped servers to India between April and June last year. The customer told Asustek that it is launching multiple fundraising projects and expected to repay the debt in the short term, Wu said. The Indian customer accounted for less than 10 percent to Asustek’s
Gasoline and diesel prices this week are to decrease NT$0.5 and NT$1 per liter respectively as international crude prices continued to fall last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday. Effective today, gasoline prices at CPC and Formosa stations are to decrease to NT$29.2, NT$30.7 and NT$32.7 per liter for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline respectively, while premium diesel is to cost NT$27.9 per liter at CPC stations and NT$27.7 at Formosa pumps, the companies said in separate statements. Global crude oil prices dropped last week after the eight OPEC+ members said they would
RSS