The Minister Betting Big on Biochar - with Minister Chi-ming Peng

In this episode of The Carbon Removal Scoop, Eve Tamme and Sebastian Manhart sit down with Chi-ming Peng, Taiwan's Minister of Environment, shortly after he set a target that put Taiwan on the carbon removal map: one million tons of biochar carbon removal by 2030. A meteorologist and entrepreneur before he entered government, Minister Peng explains where the target came from, starting with a simple question to his team about who was responsible for biochar, and the discovery that nobody had yet submitted a carbon credit methodology for it.

The pressure behind the target is hard to miss. Taiwan sits at the centre of the global AI supply chain, and its semiconductor giants will need carbon credits at a scale that expensive engineered removals cannot yet supply. With a carbon fee already in place and an emissions trading system on the way, Minister Peng makes the case that biochar is the pathway Taiwan can move on now, and explains why he is looking so closely at Europe's CRCF, the Buyers' Club and the EU ETS.

Eve and Sebastian press him on the hard parts. Where will the feedstock come from, given five million tons of agricultural waste a year that mostly heads to incinerators? Why is importing more such a tough sell, with public resistance and the Basel Convention in the way? And how does a country that cannot attend COP as a party still plan to trade carbon credits under Article 6.2, with Paraguay first in line?

They close on the next six to twelve months: the machines, the money, and the methodology still to be locked down before Taiwan's number can move from ambition to actual credits. Whether biochar becomes part of Taiwan's answer to a semiconductor industry's carbon problem, or another target that outruns the paperwork, is the question worth watching from here.

LINKS

• Eve Tamme: LinkedIn and Website
• Sebastian Manhart: LinkedIn and Website
• Minister Chi-ming Peng: LinkedIn and Facebook
• Ministry of Environment, Taiwan
• Taiwan and Paraguay sign MOU on carbon credit cooperation under the Paris Agreement

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