GGRA to be reviewed next week

The Legislative Yuan is expected to review the draft Greenhouse Gas Reduction Act next week, which if approved would set up a system to control greenhouse gas emissions and the trade in carbon credits to help reach government emission reduction targets.

EPA chief Shen Shu-hung publicly backed the bill after briefing President Ma Ying-jeou on the year’s achievements and key future environmental policy challenges.

According to the EPA, after hearing Shen’s report, Ma said that in addition to the current priority of encouraging domestic industries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the Ministry of Economic Affairs should encourage large-scale enterprises to acquire carbon credits abroad and figure carbon dioxide reduction costs into industrial development costs as a whole.

The GGRA draft was mapped out by the Cabinet-level EPA in 2006 to establish a domestic legal framework to manage greenhouse gas emissions in Taiwan.

Legislators began to review the draft bill in committee earlier this year but have yet to reach consensus on a number of clauses, including whether to put a schedule of carbon reduction targets in the act.

“Once a political figure declares (his target), he has the duty to make efforts to achieve it,” said Shen when asked about whether the target should be included.

He stressed that the carbon reduction targets have already been announced by the president and was noted in the Sustainable Energy Policy Guidelines approved by the Cabinet in June.

In accordance to Ma’s promises and the Guidelines, the government vowed to maintain Taiwan’s total greenhouse gas emissions at 2008 levels during 2016 and 2020, reduce the emissions to 2000 levels by 2025, halve the emissions from 2000 levels by 2050, and increase the low-carbon energy proportion of the country’s total energy supply to more than 55 percent by 2025.

In order to promote voluntary emission reductions among private companies, the EPA set up a national Greenhouse Gas Registry in 2007 to allow enterprises to voluntarily report their emission inventories.

To date, 136 enterprises have registered their greenhouse gas emission data, Shen said.

At present, three “carbon reduction” draft laws are all pending in the Legislative Yuan for review, including the GGRA, the Statute on the Development of Renewable Energy and the Energy Management Law.

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