The Ministry of Environment yesterday unveiled regulations governing carbon fee collection, autonomous emission reduction and greenhouse gas reduction targets for carbon fee payers in a bid to prepare industries for carbon pricing.
Fee collection would not begin until 2026, with next year to be a preparation window for fee-paying enterprises, the ministry said.
However, fee-liable businesses would still be required to report their 2024 emissions during this grace period.
Photo: Chen Chia-yi, Taipei Times
Taiwan’s carbon fee scheme would apply to 281 electric utility companies, natural gas suppliers and manufacturers who accounted for 54 percent of the nation’s total carbon emissions per year, officials said.
The criteria for paying carbon fees is ownership of an industrial facility that emits at least 25,000 tonnes of carbon a year, of which there are 500, they said.
The data are based on a 2002 industrial survey, the officials said.
The fifth carbon fee assessment and evaluation conference is to convene on Sept. 9 to set carbon rates and formalize a timetable by the end of the year, Minister of Environment Peng Chi-ming (彭啟明) said.
Companies are expected to submit emission reports starting in May next year and payments would commence the following year, he said.
The tentative schedule is designed to give enterprises sufficient time to set corporate emission reduction targets for 2030 and submit action plans to achieve that goal to the government, Peng said.
Climate Change Administration Director-General Tsai Ling-yi (蔡玲儀) said that 10 government-business conferences would be held to facilitate the adoption of reduction strategies and technologies.
Carbon fee payers may buy domestic carbon credits from voluntary reduction projects at a discount of one carbon credit for 1.2 tonnes of emissions capped at 10 percent of chargeable emissions, ministry officials said.
Enterprises not engaged in high-emission activities would be allowed to buy domestic or approved international carbon credits at a discount of one carbon credit for 1.3 tonnes of emission capped at 5 percent of chargeable emissions, they said.
Meanwhile, Taiwan Carbon Solution Exchange (TCX) chief executive officer Joshua Tien (田建中) said Taiwan’s domestic carbon credit exchange platform would launch on Oct. 2.
Tien told a forum on Wednesday that the TCX had been engaged in discussions with the ministry over the details of domestic carbon credit trading since related regulations came into effect on Aug. 15.
As a carbon fee scheme has yet to begin, the trading platform would mainly be for those planning to build new factories, he said.
Regulations announced in October last year require those setting up new factories of a particular scale and developers of high-rise construction projects to partly offset newly generated emissions by buying carbon credits from voluntary projects or implementing other offsetting measures.
Carbon credits generated from offsetting projects would be able to be sold on the platform first to buyers seeking to meet environment assessment requirements, such as construction and development projects, Tien said.
He said domestic carbon credits could be used to partly offset soon-to-be-collected carbon fees, adding that purchasing carbon credits would be better for corporate image than simply paying the fees.
Chargeable emissions would be calculated from the date the carbon fee rate is officially announced.
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
Police have issued warnings against traveling to Cambodia or Thailand when others have paid for the travel fare in light of increasing cases of teenagers, middle-aged and elderly people being tricked into traveling to these countries and then being held for ransom. Recounting their ordeal, one victim on Monday said she was asked by a friend to visit Thailand and help set up a bank account there, for which they would be paid NT$70,000 to NT$100,000 (US$2,136 to US$3,051). The victim said she had not found it strange that her friend was not coming along on the trip, adding that when she
INFRASTRUCTURE: Work on the second segment, from Kaohsiung to Pingtung, is expected to begin in 2028 and be completed by 2039, the railway bureau said Planned high-speed rail (HSR) extensions would blanket Taiwan proper in four 90-minute commute blocs to facilitate regional economic and livelihood integration, Railway Bureau Deputy Director-General Yang Cheng-chun (楊正君) said in an interview published yesterday. A project to extend the high-speed rail from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝) is the first part of the bureau’s greater plan to expand rail coverage, he told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). The bureau’s long-term plan is to build a loop to circle Taiwan proper that would consist of four sections running from Taipei to Hualien, Hualien to
RSS