The government on Friday published its draft regulations for domestic carbon credit trading, signaling the beginning of a 60-day public consultation period.
The Ministry of Environment published the draft regulations before the first batch of international carbon credits are to become available for purchase on Taiwan Carbon Solution Exchange on Friday, with the 60-day public comment period starting yesterday.
The platform, which is to facilitate the buying and selling of carbon credits, was established in August.
Photo: Chen Chia-yi, Taipei Times
The regulations would govern what can be traded or auctioned, how exchanges take place, who is permitted to buy and sell, the units of what is being traded or auctioned and how authorities intend to manage the platform, the ministry said.
Exchanges can be made through set-price trading, auctioning and negotiated trading. The first two are available on the platform, while negotiated trading takes place independently, but the details would still have to be reported to the authorities, the draft regulations state.
Sellers are those who have undertaken voluntary emissions reduction projects, while buyers are those required by the Climate Change Response Act (氣候變遷因應法) to pay carbon fees or otherwise offset their emissions.
The unit of trade would be a metric tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent and all emissions would be converted to an equivalent carbon dioxide level based on global warming potential.
Carbon credits that are traded and transferred cannot be retraded or reauctioned, and the ministry would have the right to cap or set a floor price “when necessary,” the draft states.
The document explaining the draft articles provided by the ministry said that the discretionary measure aims to to grant the authorities the right to prevent drastic price fluctuations as a result of “price hype.”
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