According to Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the emission of greenhouse gases made by human makes global warming “extremely likely.” “Extremely likely” means about 85 percent that it affects to global warming. The emission of CO2 from Korea ranked seventh in the world in 2010. To take responsibility for it, Korea announced “National Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction Roadmap 2020.” It indicates how Korea will decrease greenhouse gas by 30 percent of Business As Usual (BAU) by 2020. (BAU means calculated emission of aimed year supposing the policy which restricts greenhouse gas keep going.) It includes the amount each field emits, how much they have to decrease, and how to enforce the restrictions. Following are a key policies in the report.
Emission Trading Scheme
A trading scheme is used in the EU and it is progressing all over the world. The government assigns the maximum amount of greenhouse gas each company can emit. If a company emits more greenhouse gases than allowed, the company has to buy the excess amount from Certified Emission Reductions (CERs) exchange. Two standards are used to decide the assigned amount. One is “benchmarking,” which considers technologic level. It needs to predict future technology. The other is “grandfathering,” which considers the past amount emitted by a company. The former is currently difficult to achieve so grandfathering is expected to be adopted. Still, there are many steps involved in estimating and allotting emissions. Governments must also be careful not to deliver a blow to national competitiveness. But as CERs exchanges successfully attract attention in Busan, they are expected to create a synergy effect. The law and the exchange takes effect from 2015.
Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS)
Companies supplying energy have to supply a given percentage of renewable energy. The companies include water resource corporations, district heating corporations, and company that facility scale except equipment of renewable energy is over 500 MW . The rate is three percent in 2014 and it will gradually increase to eight percent in 2020. Also to promote photovoltaic industry, they have a separate percent allotted to sunlight generation. If the company does not obey the law, the government imposes a penalty.
Compensation System
There is a “carbon point” law, which gives an incentive corresponding to the amount that households save in water and electricity. One person per household can join through carbon point home page and the points can be used like cash in specified markets. In addition, as cars emit less CO2, owners receive a subsidy, and as cars emit more CO2, owners have to pay a fine. This law affects the price of cars and encourages consumers to buy more ecofriendly cars and manufactures to develop more ecofriendly technology.
The government has approved providing 172.7 billion KRW by 2019 to promote the development of technology that stores greenhouse gases and converts them to something useful. Additionally, through alternative fuels, improving the efficiency of products, and waste-heat reductions in various fields, the emission of greenhouse gases is expected to continuously decrease.
