Unsung climate villain South Korea

By Jang Daul

Already three decades have passed since the world decided to tackle global climate change. However, the total amount of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions emitted annually has not decreased, but rather steadily increased since the birth of the United Nations Framework for Climate Change Convention (UNFCCC) at the Rio Summit in 1992.

After these fruitless 30 years, people now say climate crisis or climate emergency instead of climate change, just as The Guardian updated its style guide in 2019. Simply, we are in a crisis, not a change. Climate science has also repeatedly told us that humanity as well as other living creatures on this planet are in an unprecedented crisis.

We need neither more scientific research to prove the global climate crisis nor another extreme weather event to realize we are in a crisis. Some scientists, instead of doing more research, have even formed a group known as Scientist Rebellion to resist the genocidal direction of the world's governments before it is too late. The recent devastating heavy rainfall and floods in Pakistan made 33 million people suffer greatly, damaging more than 2 million homes.

Once again, it's time to act.

However, unfortunately, the world is still on the path to global heating of more than double the 1.5-degree Celsius limit. In other words, even if governments keep their climate pledges and successfully continue current climate policies, the global average temperature will rise up to almost 3 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrialization. It means we will fail to prevent the irreversible climate disaster.

Another annual U.N. climate summit, COP27, is scheduled to be held from Nov. 6 to 18, 2022 in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. Since the conference is hosted by a country in the Global South, Egypt, it is expected that the focus of the discussions in the conference will be on how to address climate injustice.

Even though all the countries in the world are seriously affected by the global climate crisis, in general, the Global South is affected more than the Global North. According to the 2021 Global Climate Risk Index by German Watch, the top ten countries most affected by the climate crisis from 2000 to 2019 are all underdeveloped countries, such as Puerto Rico, Myanmar, Haiti, the Philippines, Mozambique, the Bahamas, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Thailand and Nepal.

Considering that the Global North is a lot more responsible historically for GHG emissions, we need to address this climate injustice issue. This is the reason the UNFCCC adopted the Polluter Pays Principle as well as the Common But Differentiated Responsibilities principle.

Under the UNFCCC, those countries that need to bear more responsibility for mitigation as well as providing climate finance for mitigation and the adaptation of developing countries are categorized as Annex II Parties. They are mostly OECD member countries.

Then what is the responsibility of South Korea in addressing the global climate crisis?

Korea has not been a member of the Annex II Parties under the UNFCCC since the convention was signed in 1992. However, after 30 years, things have changed. Korea was the ninth-largest carbon dioxide emitter in the world in 2020.

In 2020, Korea's amount of carbon dioxide emissions annually (598 million tons) was almost equivalent to the emissions of the U.K., the Netherlands, Belgium and Greece put together in the same year. These four European countries decreased their emissions by 38 percentage points between 1990 and 2020 while Korea increased its emissions by 139 percentage points.

Not only the amount of GHGs emitted annually here but also the amount of carbon dioxide emitted annually per capita in Korea, have increased significantly in the last 30 years and are now higher than those of most of the OECD member countries except for Australia, the U.S., Canada and Luxembourg.

As a result of the increased amount of emissions annually during the last 30 years, the cumulative carbon emissions of Korea between 1750 and 2020 also increased substantially, ranking 17th. Consequently, Korea now bears more responsibility than many of the Annex II Parties, though Korea takes less responsibility for climate crisis mitigation and almost no responsibility for providing financing to developing countries as reparations for losses and damage.

The performance and plan of Korea addressing the climate crisis are both very poor. Korea was ranked nearly last ― 59th out of the 61 countries ― in the 2022 Climate Change Performance Index by German Watch. The 2030 GHG emission reduction goals of Korea are also evaluated as "highly insufficient" by Climate Action Trackers.

It is likely that the Yoon Suk-yeol administration will not save Korea from being a climate villain. The Yoon government came up with a plan to weaken the country's already less ambitious renewable energy expansion target instead of decreasing fossil fuel use. In addition, the new government has not strengthened the climate-energy policies, which are aligned with the updated 2030 GHG emission reduction goals.

As one of the major carbon emitters as well as an unsung villain, at the forthcoming COP27 in November, Korea needs to stop being a free rider and come up with more ambitious climate mitigation plans and commitments to provide financing to the Global South in proportion to Korea's responsibility.

Jang Daul (daul.jang@greenpeace.org) is a government relations and advocacy specialist at the Greenpeace East Asia Seoul Office.