Nam Hyun-woo has worked as a staff writer at The Korea Times since 2013, mostly covering business and politics. He currently belongs to the Business Desk where he covers topics such as emerging tech, AI, ICT and Korea's chaebol community. Prior to joining the team, he was the paper's correspondent for the presidential office of Korea during the Yoon Suk Yeol and Moon Jae-in administrations.
Moon vows to bolster commitments to carbon neutrality
President Moon Jae-in makes a speech during the virtual Leaders Summit on Climate, Thursday. Yonhap
By Nam Hyun-woo
By Nam Hyun-woo
President Moon Jae-in said Thursday that Korea will strengthen its commitment to carbon neutrality by toughening the country's emissions reduction target and ending public investments into coal-fired power generation facilities.
Moon made the pledges in a speech at the Leaders Summit on Climate, which is being hosted by U.S. President Joe Biden. The two-day virtual summit is being participated in by the heads of state of 17 member countries of the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate, including Korea, and 23 other invited countries.
During his speech, Moon said Korea will present its enhanced target for carbon emissions ― called nationally determined contribution (NDC) ― to the United Nations within this year, to improve the country's contribution to global efforts to counter climate change, and encourage other nations to keep up with such efforts.
“Despite difficulties stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic, the people of Korea have set a goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050, and are now preparing detailed scenarios for that,” Moon said in his speech.
“Last year, Korea already toughened its 2030 NDC by changing the existing reduction goal to an absolute reduction target of cutting 24.4 percent from that of 2017. Following this, the country seeks to strengthen its NDC further, to express its commitment to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.”
Korea presented its NDC to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in December last year, pledging to cut the country's carbon emissions by 24.4 percent by 2030 from its 2017 level. The government has been saying that this is an enhanced measure compared to the country's previous goal of reducing 37 percent from the business as usual projection for 2030; but critics claim that the actual reduction amount remains the same.
Following this, the UNFCCC said in a February report that 48 NDCs submitted in December “fall far short of what is required, demonstrating the need for countries to further strengthen their mitigation commitments under the Paris Agreement,” which aims to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius, or preferably to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
According to the government, Korea will finalize its own plan to pursue carbon neutrality by 2050 in the first half of this year and submit its updated NDC to the United Nations in the second half.
Along with the NDC, Moon said Korea will end government financing for all overseas coal-fired power plant projects and prohibit the construction of new coal plants in the country.
“Also, Korea will end public financing for all overseas coal-fired power plant projects,” Moon said. “To achieve carbon neutrality, there is a necessity for global efforts to scale down coal-fired power plants. This, however, has to be accompanied by considerations and proper support for developing countries which are still relying heavily on coal-fired power.”
The President said that prohibiting new coal power plants was also a “tough decision” for Korea, which still relies heavily on fossil fuel to power its electricity grid. Moon added, however, that the administration had decided to do so because the country believes it has to act now to facilitate actual changes.
Moon's comments came on the heels of criticism by international civic groups against investments by the Korea Electric Power Corp. (KEPCO) into projects building coal-fired power plants in Indonesia and Vietnam. Although KEPCO announced in October that it would not make new investments into overseas coal projects after the existing ones in those countries, environmental groups have been calling on the Moon administration to withdraw from these existing projects as well.
The government said Moon's comment on ending investments into coal projects applied to new ones, adding the Indonesian and Vietnamese projects would not be affected. The administration noted that it reached this decision after considering “economic and diplomatic relations with the two countries.”
So far, 11 out of 41 G20 and OECD member nations have decided to end public investments into overseas coal projects, and Korea will become No. 12. Along with those countries, the World Bank, the European Investment Bank and the Asian Development Bank have also decided not to finance coal projects.
After ending such investments, the government said it will allocate resources to develop renewable energy technologies and entice private companies to change their business models accordingly.
The summit is taking place before Korea hosts the P4G Seoul Summit next month. Moon said the meeting will become a vehicle for partnerships between member nations and businesses in realizing carbon neutrality.