Assessing Forest Certification Eligibility for CDM Sink Project: From the Case of Taiwan Sugar Corporation in Taiwan

[[abstract]]造林減碳活動能夠提升森林面積與吸存二氧化碳，尚提供生物多樣性、水土保持等功能。然而台灣並不具備經濟林條件，迄今造林活動皆仰賴造林獎勵金政策。如今台灣溫室氣體減量法案即將通過立法，並建立碳交易平台。因此，經由政策所推動之造林活動，是否能夠進行碳交易即成為重要的議題。根據聯合國氣候變化綱要公約 (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change，UNFCCC)，減碳活動需符合其清潔發展機制 (Clean Development Mechanism，CDM) 與運作模式 (Modalities and Procedures) 的規範，方可進行碳交易。 因此，本研究目的在檢視造林獎勵金政策執行下，造林所獲得之碳匯 (carbon sinks) 是否能夠符合交易規範。因而建構一個造林活動模型，假設碳交易市場存在下，求取永續造林政策的最適獎勵金額度，以便探討過去的造林獎勵金政策與本研究建議之永續造林政策此兩種情境之差異。接著根據台糖造林之活動資訊，以CDM機制與運作模式探討森林減碳專案篩選過程，並評估專案之額外性 (Additionality) 與洩漏性 (Leakage)。 分析結果顯示，額外性評估的「投資分析 (investment analysis) 」中，過去的造林獎勵金政策違反額外性條件，但永續造林政策的獎勵金額度並不會使得造林總收益超過市場基準報酬 (benchmark)，進而違反額外性條件。此外台糖公司造林區域，若過去已規劃為遊憩營業用途，則此區域之造林便違反額外性條件中「土地利用的可能情境」評估。至於洩漏性問題，因為台糖造林並不影響林木市場與生態環境，故不存在負的洩漏性效果。由此可知，過去台糖造林區域中違反條件之造林區域將無法進行碳匯交易。[[abstract]]Afforestation activities not only increase forest cover and carbon sequestration but also promote biodiversity, water-soil conservation and so on. However, there is no commercial forest allowable in Taiwan, and afforestation activities are relying on subsidy policies so far. Today, Greenhouse Gas Reduction Act in Taiwan is on the process of legislation and will be established on the carbon trading platform. Whether the afforestation activities can proceed with carbon trading becomes an important issue. According to UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change), carbon reduction activities should be in accordance with CDM (Clean Development Mechanism) Modalities and Procedures to proceed the carbon trading. The main purpose of this paper is to overall assess if the carbon sinks obtained by afforestation is able to meet the trading norms under the afforestation subsidy policies in Taiwan. Therefore, assuming that the carbon market has been implemented, this research establishes an afforestation activity model to acquire the optimal payments of subsidy policy in order to compare the previous subsidy policy and sustainable afforestation policy proposed by this study. Then, this research examines the process of CDM project screening and assesses the additionality and leakage by CDM Modalities and Procedures in accordance with the information from Taiwan Sugar Corporation afforestation activity. The results show that the previous afforestation subsidy policy does violate the additionality in the investment analysis of the additionality assessment. On the contrary, the sustainable afforestation policy does not violate the additionality because its payments are lower than the benchmark. Moreover, if the afforestation area in Taiwan Sugar Corporation had been arranged for recreation or business use, the afforestation in this area would violate the alternative land use scenarios in additionality assessment. As for the issue of leakage, since the afforestation activity of Taiwan Sugar Corporation did not significantly affect the timber market and ecological environment, there is no leakage problem. It can be shown that the afforestation area on violation condition will be unable to proceed the carbon trading in the future.[[note]]碩