減碳政策在台灣：補貼或課稅？-- 能源、環境與經濟全球總體經濟計量模型（E3ME）之應用

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• 研討會日期 : 2020-07-21
• 時間 : 14:30
• 主講人 : Professor Daigee Shaw (蕭代基)
• 主持人 : Professor Tzu-Ting Yang
• 地點 : Conference Room B110
• 演講者簡介 : Professor Shaw received his Ph.D. in Resource Policy, Economics and Management from the University of Michigan in 1985. He is currently a Research Fellow at the Institute of Economics, Academia Sinica. His research fields are Agricultural and Environmental Economics and Urban Economics and Regional Science.
• 演講摘要 : The renewable energy feed-in tariff (FIT) is considered a price subsidy for electricity from renewable sources. This policy tool is commonly seen globally and has been one of the major climate change mitigation measures in Taiwan over the past two decades. The main reason why government agencies in Taiwan always prefer FIT to carbon or energy taxes can be attributed to their fear over those possible adverse effects that taxation may have on economic growth and income distribution, and, consequently, low public acceptability. Nevertheless, the majority of economists still regard carbon and energy taxes as the most effective economic incentives to mitigating climate change resulting from greenhouse gas emissions. This paper aims to compare the effectiveness of carbon tax and FIT in meeting the policy target of deep-decarbonization with their respective highest possible rates. By doing this, we first determine the carbon emission targets for Taiwan based on the global targets and then compare the effects of the two policy tools on emission reduction, energy structure of electricity, economic growth, and income distribution. For carbon tax simulations, we further incorporate in the simulations four potential green-tax reform measures that will recycle the entire carbon tax revenue: 1) lower VAT, and enterprise and household income tax rates, as well as the social security payment accrued to employers; 2) increase in social security and welfare payments to low-income households; 3) uniform transfers; and 4) combined uniform transfers and VAT reduction. We apply the E3ME model to conduct the analysis. Three significant results emerge. First, the carbon tax is far more effective than FIT in terms of carbon emissions reduction. In 2030, the carbon tax will reduce electricity generated by 30% relative to the baseline, while FIT can reduce only 2%. Similarly, the carbon tax can curtail 46% of carbon emissions, while FIT can mitigate only 3.6%. Secondly, both carbon tax and FIT will increase the electricity from renewable sources. In 2030, that amounts to 25 billion kWh for the carbon tax, and only 16.6 billion kWh for FIT, which corresponds to 15% and 7% of total generated electricity, respectively. Thirdly, FIT will have a negligible yet negative effect on economic growth and income distribution. However, carbon tax, when coupled with tax revenue recycling strategies, do have positive growth and distributional effects on the economy. Based on these results, this paper offers policy suggestions for deep decarbonization in Taiwan.