Bahk Eun-ji has been with The Korea Times since 2012, building a career across multiple desks. She began at the Business Desk, where she conducted in-depth interviews with key figures in Korea's corporate world. Later, she moved to the Politics & City Desk, focusing on education policy and social affairs. She later served as team leader of the digital content team, leading curation efforts on the newspaper’s homepage and reshaping print stories for social media audiences to enhance digital reach. Now back on the Politics Desk, she covers the National Assembly and the Ministry of National Defense, with a renewed focus on political developments.
Seoul City cuts budget for fight against climate crisis
Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon / Yonhap
By Bahk Eun-ji
By Bahk Eun-ji
Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon has vowed to make the capital become a carbon-neutral city that achieves net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, and said the city government will exert all efforts to achieve the goal.
However, the Seoul Metropolitan Government has slashed a large portion of its 2022 budget for environmental protection and its fight against climate change.
According to the city's budget plan for 2022, submitted to the Seoul Metropolitan Council earlier this month, the relevant budget has been reduced by 450 billion won ($379.3 million) compared to 2021.
Next year's budget allocated to the city government's Climate Environment Headquarters is 463 billion won, down by 117 billion won from this year.
About half of the reduced amount at the headquarters, or 55.7 billion won, was from projects that have been carried out by the Climate Change Response Division, including the “Green Remodeling” project aimed at improving the energy efficiency of buildings by remodeling them with eco-friendly facilities.
The budget allocated to the Vehicle Emissions Control Division under the headquarters also decreased by about 63.9 billion won. The division has been providing financial support to install emissions reduction devices such as diesel particulate filters on vehicles.
“The number of applications for the Green Remodeling project at public health centers and daycare centers decreased amid the COVID-19 outbreak, and the budget for the vehicle emissions reduction project was reduced because the number of target vehicles decreased as the project reached its completion stage,” a city official said.
The budget for Green Seoul Bureau for next year was also cut by 308.4 billion won compared to this year. Affected projects of the bureau include the purchase of land to be transformed into parks, ecological restoration of streams, and the establishment of infrastructure for bicycle use.
In September, the city government also said it would stop providing subsidies to homes that install small solar panels on their balconies. Since the beginning of the project in 2014, the city government has paid for about 80 percent of installation costs.
For the cause of suspending the project initiated by Oh's predecessor Park Won-soon, the city cited cost inefficiency. It also filed a complaint with the police against some solar panel companies that participated in the city's project, for allegedly using insider information to be selected.
Since taking office, Oh has claimed that the city's budget has been offered too liberally under the name of subsidies in the project.
In response to the budget cuts, Mayor Oh said in a city council session on Thursday, “Renewable energy is needed to overcome climate change, but solar power is not the only renewable energy. We will discover various alternatives such as geothermal heat, and introduce them for new buildings.”
But critics say the city government is taking a step back in its fight against the climate crisis.
“In the era of the climate crisis, a mega-city like Seoul has a lot of work to do, but Mayor Oh does not realize the responsibility of the capital, which has a large carbon footprint,” the Korean Federation for Environmental Movements said in a statement.
“We urge the mayor to be fully aware of his duty and role.”