Taiwan raises bar on tackling greenhouse gas emissions

Publication Date：06/24/2011
Source： Taiwan Today
By Ed Zacapa

At the just completed U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change in Bonn, Germany, the general consensus of delegates was that to stop the looming climate crisis, greater efforts must be made to tackle greenhouse gas emissions. The UNFCCC believes the world must work together toward putting the brakes on climate change and formulating a revolutionary response to this most serious of challenges.

For the ROC government, this message—although not exactly new—reaffirms the value of its policies aimed at slashing national carbon dioxide outputs. It is an unavoidable fact of life that Taiwan, as an industrialized economy, contributes to this growing global problem. According to the Environmental Protection Administration, the island is responsible for roughly 1 percent of the world’s emissions per year.

As a responsible member of the international community, Taiwan is taking aggressive steps to change this state of affairs. ROC President Ma Ying-jeou is consistently promoting his administration’s goals of reducing CO2 outputs and cutting energy intensity—a key factor in slowing resource depletion and building a sustainable energy future.

After Ma took office in May 2008, he announced his target of stabilizing Taiwan’s emissions at 2008 levels by 2020. The EPA later expanded this to a three-step target to bring the country’s outputs down to 2008 levels by 2020; to 2000 levels by 2025; and to half of 2000 levels by 2050.

The Legislature has played an important part in assisting the Ma administration to achieve its emissions goals. On June 12, 2009, it passed the Renewable Energy Act aimed at promoting the use of green power, diversifying supplies and helping reduce outputs. The new law authorizes the government to enhance incentives for the development of renewable sources like the sun, wind, water, biomass and biogas.

Lawmakers are also working on draft amendments to the Commodity Tax Act and Vehicle License Tax Act, which could boost sales of low-polluting vehicles in Taiwan and add further oomph to the nation’s drive to cut emissions and encourage industries to invest in developing low-carbon vehicles.

Proposed changes to the Commodity Tax Act will open a five-year window enabling motorists to save NT$25,000 (US$862) off the price of automobiles running on liquefied petroleum gas and gasoline. The Vehicle License Act revision greenlights local governments to grant license tax exemptions for electric vehicles. Although both bills passed preliminary review May 23, the Ministry of Finance believes there is still some way to go for them to be completed during the next legislative session beginning Sept. 1.

But this push to create a greener Taiwan and reduce emissions is not the exclusive domain of the central government. The island’s five special municipalities— Kaohsiung, New Taipei, Taichung, Taipei and Tainan cities—are leading regional efforts to reduce emissions through implementing international standards. In addition, a raft of polices formulated to cut outputs have been formulated, including developing nuclear energy, low-carbon architecture and green transportation.

One noteworthy initiative has been the EPA’s drafting of an emissions management system for Taiwan’s cities. Based on an outputs analysis created by the Germany-headquartered ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability, the system will be used by local governments to monitor emissions in their municipalities and implement targeted reductions.

Since 2005, nine of Taiwan’s 22 local governments have joined ICLEI, an international association of 1,200 cities committed to sustainable development.

Of these special municipalities, southern Taiwan’s Kaohsiung has been particularly active in seizing the climate change challenge by the scruff of the neck. There is good reason for this: EPA figures on carbon dioxide equivalents confirm the city as having the highest CDE nationwide at 39.75 million metric tons. In comparison, Taichung, New Taipei City, Taipei and Tainan reported 26.44, 21.22, 16.82 and 14.69 million metric tons respectively.

Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu, much like Ma, never misses an opportunity to act on reducing emissions. On May 7, she addressed a regional summit of ROC Pacific allies Kiribati, Nauru and Tuvalu, pledging to play an expanded role in tackling climate change and raising awareness of environmental sustainability.

During the summit, several Kaohsiung-based universities and hospitals presented research reports detailing environmental and public health issues affecting the three countries. And at the conclusion, Chen was positively beaming as Kiribati President Anote Tong, Nauru President Marcus Stephen and Tuvalu Prime Minister Willy Telavi added their signatures to a declaration of cooperation signed by participants at the two-day event organized by Kaohsiung shipbuilder Ching Fu Group.

Another farsighted step taken by Chen and her administration in transforming Kaohsiung into a low-carbon city was the decision June 1 to join more than 40 metropolises around the world in the Carbon Disclosure Project. The CDP is an independent, nonprofit organization holding the largest database on primary corporate climate change information worldwide.

Under the project, Kaohsiung will disclose its emissions and climate change strategies on the organization’s website, allowing environmental groups and individuals at home and abroad to gain a better understanding of the port city’s carbon reduction efforts.

Given the importance attached to the issue of climate change by Taiwan’s central and local governments, it is hardly surprising that enlightened environmental laws with a strong focus on reducing greenhouse gas emissions are now the order of the day. The nation is definitely answering the UNFCCC’s call for a strong response to the global challenge of climate change; only time will tell if these efforts will help raise the bar on keeping this threat at bay.

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