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Government announces new plans for climate change adaptation
The government says it plans to inject NT$411 billion as part of its latest climate change adaptation plan over four years.
The statement comes after the cabinet approved the "National Climate Change Adaptation Action Plan 2023-2026. The plan was drafted by the Ministry of Environment and 16 other ministries. The first action plan was introduced for 2013-2017, followed by a second that ran from 2018-2022.
The 2023-2026 phase covers plans for a variety of areas including infrastructure, water resources, land use, coastal and marine environments, energy supply and industry, agricultural production and biodiversity, public health, and capacity building.
The Climate Change Administration says there are a total of 126 adaptation action plans for 2023-2026, of which 78 are continuations of ongoing plans and 48 are new. The new plans include the building of desalination plants in Hsinchu and Tainan.
In other unrelated environmental news, Taiwan Carbon Solution Exchange Chairman Sherman Lin says international carbon credits are expected to be available soon. During the Net-Zero Taiwan International Summit, Lin said the exchange expects to have international carbon credits available for purchase by the end of December, earlier than the exchange of domestic carbon credits.
However, Lin also says the exchange of domestic carbon credits will only begin after Taiwan starts to collect carbon fees, which is expected to happen only in 2025. Lin also says that whereas a cap-and-trade system is mandatory in some areas, including the European Union, Taiwan's way of restricting carbon emissions is via "carbon fees and voluntary reductions."
The Taiwan Carbon Solution Exchange was launched in August. The government says it will help companies execute carbon disclosure.
