Incheon, April 14 - The National Institute of Environmental Research (NIER, President Kim Dong-jin), an affiliate of the Ministry of Environment, will be publishing "vehicle-related environmental policies of foreign countries and global trends of technologies" every month starting April 14. The publication intends to raise the public's awareness of environmental policies, including policies to reduce fine dust in the transportation sector and carbon neutrality. The Ministry of Environment has set greenhouse gas emission limits on vehicles and pushed to supply zero-emission vehicles to attain carbon neutrality. On the other hand, the NIER conducts environmental impact assessments for zero-emission vehicles and manages greenhouse gas emission limits. 

The first volume will detail the federal and California's plans to reinforce greenhouse gas emission limits and supply zero-emission vehicles as a part of their strategy to achieve carbon neutrality. Since March 2021, the U.S. has declared a "transition to 100% zero-emission vehicles" as a part of policies to attain net-zero emission in transportation sectors by 2050. 

The U.S. announced a comprehensive plan to ensure competitiveness and create jobs by rapidly shifting the automobile industry to emission-free vehicles. The U.S. government also announced that it would fortify its environmental standards and related policies. The California State government announced a much tougher transition plan1 to zero-emission vehicles in March 2022 to improve air quality and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Their announcement included the state's plan to detail when vehicles with internal combustion engines were phased out and make all new passenger vehicles and SUVs zero-emission by 2035 and 2040, respectively.

The NIER website will have this month's publication available for download in PDF format, and a new volume will be released in the middle of each month. The next volume will cover other countries' policies and technological trends of greenhouse gas reduction for vehicles, zero-emission, and non-road transportation (construction or agricultural machinery). It will also include policies on low emission zone and battery technology. 

Lee Jong-tae, Director of the NIER's Transportation Pollution Research Center, said, "This publication will raise the public's awareness and understanding of carbon neutrality and vehicle emission standards. We will periodically publish materials on different environmental policies and technology trends."

1 California's Zero-Emission Vehicle Regulation: A program requiring 68% of new passenger vehicles and small trucks to be zero-emission by 2030 and 100% by 2035, and 100% by 2040 for SUVs. It will phase out the sales of new vehicles with internal combustion engines by 2045 (March 2022)

Contact: PARK Sang-ki, Researcher 

National Institute of Environmental Research / +82-(0)32-560-7628

Foreign Media Contact: CHUN Minjo

+82-(0)44-201-6055 / rachelmchun@korea.kr