Climate groups yesterday urged the government to increase planned carbon emissions cuts from 20 percent to 40 percent by 2030, a day after UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the COP27 summit in Egypt that the world is on the “highway to climate hell.”
After targeting a 2 percent carbon emissions cut by 2020, Taiwan’s climate aims include achieving a 20 percent cut by 2030 and a 50 percent cut by 2050, Citizen of the Earth, Taiwan adviser Tsai Chung-yueh (蔡中岳) told a news conference in Taipei.
The administration of President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) is pushing amendments to Taiwan’s climate laws that would include a carbon fee scheme and renaming legislation as a “climate change response act,” officials have said.
Photo: CNA
These goals were stipulated in the 2014 Greenhouse Gas Reduction and Management Act (溫室氣體減量及管理法), which predated the policy aim of reaching net zero emissions by 2050, Tsai Chung-yueh said.
Other countries have realized that the 2050 net zero goal is not possible without elevating emission reduction targets for 2030, he said, adding that continued inaction would put Taiwan’s commitment to carbon neutrality in a bad light.
Cutting carbon emissions by only 20 percent by 2030 would mean that annual reductions from then to 2050 would need to be 33 percent greater than with a 40 percent reduction by 2030, or an additional 10.73 million tonnes of carbon annually, Taiwan Environment and Planning president Chao Chia-wei (趙家緯) said.
The government’s plan to increase the share of renewable sources of energy in electricity generation and promote electric vehicles is sufficient to accommodate the 40 percent goal, Chao said.
The legislature must pass the climate change bill this legislative session to help prevent further delays in the implementation of net zero emissions, Green Citizens’ Action Alliance researcher Chin Shu-huai (秦書淮) said.
Every year of delay in implementation means 60 billion tonnes of carbon emissions go uncharged, which results in taxpayers subsidizing polluters without getting anything in return, Chin said.
The bill should be redesigned to emphasize carbon fee collection from corporations over subsidy payouts for reduced emissions to avoid taking the bite out of the fees, she said.
Use of carbon revenue should focus on aid to groups that are most affected by climate-related disasters and establish a timetable for transforming the carbon fee system to the carbon tax system, she said.
Taiwan’s six special municipalities, which are responsible for 70 percent of the nation’s carbon output, have established policies to accomplish emissions cuts of more than 30 percent by 2030, Environmental Rights Foundation researcher Lin yen-ting (林彥廷) said.
The national government should not be outdone by local governments in protecting the environment and it should urgently amend the climate change bill with the changes the groups have asked for, Lin said.
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