As Taiwan prepares to implement its own carbon pricing system, international experts attending the Global Carbon Market Forum in Taipei on Thursday discussed how international carbon credits are used in the carbon pricing schemes adopted by their countries.
At the forum held on the last day of the Net Zero City Expo, the experts outlined the frameworks and practices of different carbon credit markets in Europe, Japan, Singapore and China.
Many discussed the use of carbon credits from the international voluntary carbon market in each of their own country’s carbon pricing systems.
Joyce Goh (吳佳佳), the commercial director of Singapore’s carbon exchange Climate Impact X, said the financial hub uses a carbon tax to control the country’s emissions, and carbon tax-liable companies could offset up to 5 percent of their taxable emissions using international carbon credits.
The tax has increased from an initial S$5 (US$3.71) per tonne in 2019 to S$25 this year, Goh said.
“And in 2026 it is expected to further rise to S$45, and in 2030 to about S$60 to S$80,” she added.
Saki Kawakubo, an expert from the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s Carbon Credit Market Office, said that as the Japanese government aims to reduce carbon emissions while growing its economy, “the government would hesitate to accept international credits, which [are believed to have little to] contribute to the domestic economy” if a mandatory carbon pricing scheme were established.
Japan has not established a mandatory pricing scheme requiring major emitters to reduce their emissions or pay carbon tax, but its “J-credit” system encourages enterprises to set their own targets and trade the emissions, Kawakubo said.
London Stock Exchange Group analyst Jin Boyang, who is well acquainted with China’s carbon credit market, said that, based on China’s experience, oversupply of voluntary credits is a risk if an offset limit is not imposed or a well-researched methodology for what counts as quality carbon credits is not applied.
Jurgen Landgrebe, head of Division V, which is responsible for climate protection, energy and emissions trading at the German Environment Agency, said that voluntary international carbon credits “will not be eligible in the EU mandatory scheme in the future.”
In the past, a lot of different carbon offset units that were similar to voluntary carbon credits were allowed in the EU’s mandatory trading scheme.
However, Landgrebe said that ultimately “we lost our priority, because you cannot sell your emission deductions and reduce at the same time,” he said.
“The offset is a good starting point ... but it’s not the solution,” Landgrebe said.
“You have to have a high ambition” to reduce carbon emissions, he added.
The EU Emission Trading System, approved by the European parliament in April last year, and which took effect on Jan. 1 this year, is a typical mandatory carbon pricing system that puts a cap on the total level of emissions and allows those industries with low emissions to sell their extra credits to larger emitters whose emissions exceed the cap.
Although a carbon fee rate has yet to be set, Taiwanese companies that emit more than 25,000 tonnes a year are expected to have to pay carbon fees starting next year.
Draft carbon fee regulations, announced in December last year, propose that the use of international carbon credits would be capped at 5 percent of a company’s total emissions from the preceding year.
Taipei and New Taipei City government officials are aiming to have the first phase of the Wanhua-Jungho-Shulin Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) line completed and opened by 2027, following the arrival of the first train set yesterday. The 22km-long Light Green Line would connect four densely populated districts in Taipei and New Taipei City: Wanhua (萬華), Jhonghe (中和), Tucheng (土城) and Shulin (樹林). The first phase of the project would connect Wanhua and Jhonghe districts, with Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall and Chukuang (莒光) being the terminal stations. The two municipalities jointly hosted a ceremony for the first train to be used
MILITARY AID: Taiwan has received a first batch of US long-range tactical missiles ahead of schedule, with a second shipment expected to be delivered by 2026 The US’ early delivery of long-range tactical ballistic missiles to Taiwan last month carries political and strategic significance, a military source said yesterday. According to the Ministry of National Defense’s budget report, the batch of military hardware from the US, including 11 sets of M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) and 64 MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile Systems, had been scheduled to be delivered to Taiwan between the end of this year and the beginning of next year. However, the first batch arrived last month, earlier than scheduled, with the second batch —18 sets of HIMARS, 20 MGM-140 missiles and 864 M30
Representative to the US Alexander Yui delivered a letter from the government to US president-elect Donald Trump during a meeting with a former Trump administration official, CNN reported yesterday. Yui on Thursday met with former US national security adviser Robert O’Brien over a private lunch in Salt Lake City, Utah, with US Representative Chris Stewart, the Web site of the US cable news channel reported, citing three sources familiar with the matter. “During that lunch the letter was passed along, and then shared with Trump, two of the sources said,” CNN said. O’Brien declined to comment on the lunch, as did the Taipei
A woman who allegedly attacked a high-school student with a utility knife, injuring his face, on a Taipei metro train late on Friday has been transferred to prosecutors, police said yesterday. The incident occurred near MRT Xinpu Station at about 10:17pm on a Bannan Line train headed toward Dingpu, New Taipei City police said. Before police arrived at the station to arrest the suspect, a woman surnamed Wang (王) who is in her early 40s, she had already been subdued by four male passengers, one of whom was an off-duty Taipei police officer, police said. The student, 17, who sustained a cut about
RSS