Korean Government Decided the 4th Comprehensive Measures for Climate Change.
Korean government will enact “Act on Climate Change” in 2009, and take various taxation measures including ‘carbon tax’.
In addition, Korean government plans to support the industries to voluntarily develop and implement GHG reduction plan, inducing the GHG emission by 3.2% of 2005, by 2012 (1.8mil carbon ton).
Government held a meeting of Committee for Climate Change, presided by Prime Minister, Han Duck-soo, where the committee review and confirm the 4th Comprehensive Measures for Climate Change to be implemented for 5 years from 2008.
The Comprehensive Measure does not indicate the national reduction target, but the Government will establish and announce the national reduction target with concrete numbers in 2008.
The Government decided to manage energy demand by sectors to reduce carbon dioxide emission through the Comprehensive Measures. By enforcing businesses with large amount of GHG emission to implement voluntary reduction measures and supporting the investment for energy saving, the amount of carbon dioxide emission by industries would be reduced by 1.8 million tons, by 2012.
For large scale residential and industrial complexes, provision of environment-friendly energy sources through cogeneration to 30 sites will reduce 2.5 mil. tons of carbon dioxide. GHG emission by vehicles will be reduced by 600,000 tons by 2012 and regulation on GHG emission for vehicles and air plains will be considered.
The usage of renewable energy will be gradually expanded from 2.3% in 2006 to 5% in2011 and 9% in 2030. Bio diesel mixture ration will be also raised from 0.5% in 2007 to 3% in 2012, while supply of natural gas will be increased to 33.36 mil. tons by 2012.
The Government considered that nuclear energy, with little GHG emission, is effective energy source in terms of climate change and decided to investigate expansion of the share of nuclear power plants under national strategy.
Environment friendly vehicles will be more disseminated for instance 7,920 hybrid cars, 1,750 fuel cell vehicles, and 13,080 and 1,122 natural gas buses and cleaning cars respectively by 2012.
In addition to the plan for reducing GHG emission, Korean Government drew up measures to increase carbon sink by forestation. By 2012, the amount of absorbed CO2 will be increased by 17 mil. tons by cultivating forests (1,1 mil. ha), forestation of idle land (2,163 ha), forestation in cities (1,125 ha) and schools (200 ha).
Along with forestation efforts, it is planned to establish foundation for environment-friendly agriculture and recover methane generated at landfill sites, decreasing emission of NO by 900,000 tons and methane by 2.3 mil. tons by 2012.
The Measure also includes plan to support establishment of emission trading agency, and facilitate carbon market by launching voluntary emission trading market and introducing emission trading system.
|
