In response to the amendment to the Greenhouse Gas Reduction and Management Act (溫室氣體減量及管理法), which has passed its third reading, and renamed as the Climate Change Response Act (氣候變遷因應法) and promulgated by President Tsai Ing-wen, the EPA has organized three sessions of the "Climate Change Response Act and Enhanced Industrial Greenhouse Gas Inventory Management Approach" briefing, with the first session held on 26 April. In addition to explaining the follow-up implementation plans, the session also provided updates on the progress of inventory verification operations for the current year. Feedback from various sectors was gathered to gain an understanding on practical implementation challenges and to assess potential adjustments for future legislative amendments.
The EPA stated that a tiered management approach is taken in the Climate Change Response Act (hereinafter referred to as the Climate Act) for inventory and verification of emissions from emission sources. Since the implementation of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction and Management Act (hereinafter referred to as the GHG Act), inventory and verification adjustments and enhancements are needed. Therefore, the EPA will undertake the revision of the Management Regulations Governing Greenhouse Gas Emission Inventories and Registration (溫室氣體排放量盤查登錄管理辦法). The key points of the revision are as follows:
The inventory and verification of greenhouse gas emissions are to be completed in stages to ensure appropriate allocation of verification capacity.
Current regulations require enterprises to complete the inventory and registration of greenhouse gas emissions for the previous year by 31 August each year. They are required to upload the greenhouse gas emissions inventory, inventory report, verification statement, and verification summary report to the designated information platform. The greenhouse gas emissions inventory and inventory report are submitted by the enterprises after completing the inventory, while the verification statement and verification summary report need to be submitted by verification organizations after conducting the verification. Currently, verification operations concentrate in the first half of the year, and as a result, enterprises cannot upload their emissions inventories and inventory reports if the verification processes are not yet completed. In response to the tiered management approach for inventory and verification under the Climate Act, the completion timeframe for inventory and verification operations will be adjusted to provide sufficient time for industries to comply.
The greenhouse gas emissions information platform is to be enhanced by adding a digital generation function for inventory reports, improving the efficiency of enterprises in conducting inventories.
The content of the inventory report mainly includes the purpose of the inventory, an introduction to the enterprise, inventory boundary setting, emission source identification, emission quantification, and data quality management. The completion of inventory reports by enterprises is not only required by the inventory registration and management regulations, the reports can also be provided to customers upon request. In the future, a feature to digitally generate inventory reports will be developed based on the required content of the report, to assist enterprises in completing the inventory report more efficiently.
A different version of Global Warming Potential (GWP) is to be adopted and the emissions calculated with different versions of GWP will be presented in a reference table according to the needed greenhouse gas emissions in the supply chains provided by enterprises.
When the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) requested countries to submit their national inventories, it mandated the adoption of IPCC AR5 GWP by 31 December 2024. Therefore, this amendment requires enterprises to adopt the IPCC AR5 version of GWP in calculating their greenhouse gas emissions in accordance with the convention's mandate. However, enterprises conducting greenhouse gas inventories may also adopt the IPCC AR6 version of GWP in accordance with the requirements of other international organizations. As a result, there are plans to provide a reference table showing greenhouse gas emissions calculated using different versions of GWP to flexibly assist industries in adapting to these variations.
Excerpt from Major Environmental Policies, April 2023
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