GOVT’S CARBON EMISSION PLANS

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The government has finalized two plans for eliminating carbon emissions by 2050. It has also outlined an interim goal to cut carbon emissions by 40 percent by 2030.

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The government has announced two roadmaps for going carbon neutral. Both of them are aimed at eliminating carbon emissions to net-zero by 2050. They go a step further from the previous scenario, which allowed carbon emissions of up to 25.4 million tons.

[Soundbite] Moon Jae-in(President) : "The international community is desperate when it comes to climate change. The number of nations that support or announced carbon neutrality goals after the 2015 Paris Agreement has risen to 134. Most of them have significantly raised their targets for reducing greenhouse emissions."

Coal-fired power plants will be scrapped completely by 2050. Unlike Plan A, which calls for the suspension of coal and LNG power generation, Plan B calls for keeping LNG as a power source. The industrial sector must cut carbon emissions by 80 percent from 2018 by using low-carbon technologies. The transportation sector must replace more than 85 percent of vehicles with ones powered by electricity and hydrogen. The government has decided to reduce carbon emissions by 40 percent from the 2018 level by 2030. The goal is about 13 percent higher than the previous target of 26.3 percent. To achieve it, the country must cut emissions by 4.17 percent annually. The power generation sector will have to curb emissions by up to 44 percent and the industrial sector by 14.5 percent by expanding the use of new renewable energy by nearly fivefold.

[Soundbite] Yoon Sun-jin(Co-chair, Presidential Committee on Carbon Neutrality) : "We will devise a more detailed plan on carbon reduction and check annually if it's being implemented properly."

The government will finalize the plans at a cabinet meeting next week before announcing it at the UN COP26 Climate Change Summit in Scotland slated for next month.