Taiwan: Climate Change Response Act enacted

 

The Taiwanese Environmental Protection Administration has informed that, after almost a year, the Climate Change Response Act was finally promulgated.

The Act revises the Greenhouse Gas Reduction and Management Act to establish a resilient system that can react quickly to impacts of climate change and expedite the transition to net zero emission by introducing carbon tax and incentives for development of low carbon technology. Below is the summary of the revisions:

• Remaining of the Act to be “Climate Change Response Act;”
• Inclusion of the goal of net zero emissions by 2050;
• Enhancement of the level of climate governance, designation of the body for coordinating related affairs, and assignment of the responsibilities to different sectors;
• Introduction of climate change adaptation chapter, including basic capacity building, science-based risk assessment of climate change, and establishment of climate change governance and coordination mechanism between all levels of government, together with the existing mitigation chapter to make climate strategies complete;
• Introduction of the graded verification system according to the scope of emissions and the type of entities, in response to the rising demand for verification;
• Introduction of GHG emissions performance standards for certain equipment or industrial processes;
• Establishment of permissible GHG emissions or mitigation requirements for the manufacture, importation, selling of motor vehicles;
• Imposition of carbon fee in stages on the direct and indirect GHG emissions, with the revenue being earmarked for GHG reduction, development of low carbon and negative emission technologies and industries, subsidies and awards for investments in GHG reduction technologies, to promote GHG reduction and low carbon economy development;
• Enactment regulations for imports: entities who import certain goods shall purchase reduction credits according to the differences in carbon emission; and
• Prohibition or restriction of the manufacture, import, export, selling, use or emission of high global warming potential GHGs regulated by international environmental conventions, as well as products made with such GHGs.

The full text of the standard can be found HERE.

To find out more about environmental regulations, please contact the Product Compliance Institute directly.