The Ministry of Environment has announced amendments to regulations on quantifying and registering greenhouse gas emissions to better understand Taiwan’s emissions before carbon fee collections begin in 2025.
The new rules would come into force next year to improve the quantification and verification of greenhouse gas emissions, the ministry said on Thursday.
Existing regulations on mandatory carbon emissions reporting require businesses that emit more than 25,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year to upload their emissions inventories and verification reports to the government system by the end of August every year. There are 500 such companies.
Photo: Taipei Times
To accommodate the Climate Change Response Act (氣候變遷因應法), which was amended earlier this year to separate the management and verification of emissions, the newly amended regulations require separate deadlines for quantification report registration, which must be done by the end of every April, and the verification report, which must be submitted within six months of that date or no later than Oct. 31, the ministry said.
The regulations have been renamed the Regulations Governing Greenhouse Gas Emissions Quantification, Registration and Verification (溫室氣體排放量盤查登錄及查驗管理辦法).
They also have clearer emissions calculation methods, and stipulate that certified testing institutions must carry out testing.
Some companies are concerned about their manufacturing processes being revealed, but Climate Change Administration Deputy Director General Huang Wei-ming (黃偉鳴) said that the new rules also detail information to be included in the quantification report and non-disclosure rules.
One new clause prohibits verification being carried out by the same lead verification inspector for six consecutive years.
Huang said one of the main goals in amending the regulations is to get a clearer idea about the amount of carbon emissions created by the 500 “big emitters,” as a base for calculating the carbon fees to be collected starting in 2025.
The carbon fee rate is still under discussion.
The amended regulations also stipulate penalties for those who fail to take remedial action after being notified of their failure to meet the report deadlines.
Other issues include a failure to keep relevant reports or there being a discrepancy of more than 5 percent between the quantification report and the result of an inspection.
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