Businesses have an increasing responsibility to address global climate change as risks intensify. Extreme weather events, such as droughts, floods, and hurricanes, pose serious threats to global economic and social stability. Companies, as key drivers of economic activity, are responsible for reducing their carbon footprints, improving energy efficiency, and advancing sustainable development.
The Climate Governance Barometer (CGB) is the survey analysis developed by the Risk Society and Policy Research Center, National Taiwan University (RSPRC) to illustrate public attitudes toward climate issues in Taiwan. There are two principal reasons for the significance of climate change issues to Taiwan. On the one hand, the increasing frequency of extreme climate events like typhoons and droughts, has caused lots of loss and damage, directly impacting citizens’ daily lives and safety. On the other hand, as one of the world’s most important economies, Taiwan faces the potential challenges of meeting international commitments and reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
In recent years, the assessment of climate risks has had a profound effect on the sustainability of business operations. To address this challenge, the Financial Stability Board (FSB) established the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) in 2015, which issued relevant guidelines in 2017. However, as climate risk issues have become more complex, the TCFD announced its dissolution in 2023, transferring its oversight responsibilities to the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) Foundation.
In the first part of this series, it was mentioned that the measures to reduce carbon emission in the petrochemical industry can be summarized in an acronym SCUR which represents 4 words: Save, Capture, Utilization, and Renewable/Recycle. The first two articles in this series introduce Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) and energy saving. In this article the Utilization (CCU) part is discussed. The objective is to introduce a variety of ways carbon dioxide could be used to reduce carbon emission.
In 2023, CPC Corporation（中油）, Taiwan (hereinafter referred to as CPC) planned to initiate a carbon storage experiment in the Tieh–Chen Mountain（鐵砧山）area of Tunghsiao（通宵）Township, Miaoli County. The experiment represents an important step of Taiwan to realize carbon storage. This article was to explain why CPC selected this site for the carbon storage test, and how CPC plans to address social communication around carbon storage.
During the course of the Russia–Ukraine war, which began in 2022, Russia has bombed Ukraine with missiles, destroying Ukraine's electric power infrastructure and causing widespread blackouts in various regions, affecting winter heating supplies, and possibly causing residents to flee or freeze to death. According to reports from Independent (2022) and BBC (2022), Ukrainian officials described Russia's wartime actions as energy genocide.
At this year's COP28, the Global Stocktake emphasized the need for all countries to triple their installed capacity for renewable energy by 2030. Therefore, Taiwan must adopt more forward-looking strategies and actions to maximize emission reduction efficiencies.
At the Conference of Parties (COP)21 conference in 2015, the Paris Agreement was signed to curb global warming. Its goal was to ensure that the global average temperature does not exceed 2 °C above pre-industrial levels and to strive to limit it to 1.5 °C. However, according to the Provisional State of the Global Climate 2023 released by the World Meteorological Organization, ...
Environmental issues in climate change, depletion of natural resources and energy crisis have posed great challenges on sustaining human beings. Many countries have come to realized that technology alone is not sufficient in dealing with the environmental problems
Over the years, the Risk Society and Policy Research Center, National Taiwan University (hereinafter referred to as RSPRC) has consistently conducted public opinion surveys on climate- and energy-related matters.
In a typical petrochemical plant, the majority of carbon dioxide emission is due to burning of hydrocarbon fuels to generate energy. Thus, energy saving is essentially equivalent to carbon reduction. Of course, energy saving has significant economic incentives by itself given that energy cost is usually the second largest operating expense besides feed cost.
At the turn of the year, this is an important time to review what has been accomplished and built upon our past accomplishments. In 2021, in addition to the global COVID-19 pandemic, climate disasters were also rampant around the world. For example, heat waves occurred in North America; floods raged in Western Europe and Henan, China; and the worst drought in 56 years happened in central and southern Taiwan. The above-mentioned events are confirmed that the climate crisis is imminent. Leaders of various countries have successively announced the carbon neutrality goal and actively formulated a road map for achieving net zero emissions. What progress have those countries made since they declared carbon neutrality goals one year ago?
The theme of this newsletter is about the corporate climate-related financial disclosure, so this OpenEnergy is paired with the topic of corporate climate action tracking. The first target of this article is to track the status of Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) proposed by companies in various countries. S
On the "Hon Hai Tech Day" on October 18, 2021, Hon Hai Technology Group officially unveiled three electric vehicles at the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center. This debut has become a milestone for the Hon Hai Technology Group, symbolizing that Hon Hai's corporate map is no longer limited to part manufacturing and OEM but will launch its own electric vehicles under the "Foxtron" brand with affordable prices for everyone.
The petrochemical industry by definition uses petroleum or natural gas as the basic feedstock and produces a wide variety of products. In Taiwan, the industry contributes about 16.5 percent of GDP with a complete and well-integrated production chain. However, the industry also contributes significantly to Taiwan's 270 Mt/yr CO2 emission.
