(EDITORIAL from the Korea Herald on Oct. 31)

dailies-editorials (1)



CO2 emissions

The administration is reportedly planning to commit itself to a drastic cut in
greenhouse gas emissions when it makes a final decision on the issue on Nov. 17.

Worried about its impact on their businesses, corporations are calling on the
administration to be realistic about its target for 2020.
But there is too much hype about what the administration allegedly intends to do.
None of the three CO2 reduction proposals under consideration is seen as
extraordinary by any measure. Simply put, businesses are making a mountain out of
a molehill in complaining about the government's forthcoming policy on carbon
emissions.
The three proposals involve 21 percent, 27 percent and 30 percent cuts from an
increase on the "business as usual" trajectory. The administration is reportedly
in favor of the plan for a 30 percent reduction, which one energy expert
sympathetic to the business community calls the largest the European Union demands
among developing countries. But the three respective cuts from a BAU model are in
fact equal to an 8 percent increase, a freeze and a 4 percent decrease from the
2005 level.
True, the EU is pressuring developing countries to cut their greenhouse gas
emissions 15 percent to 30 percent from the BAU models. The problem is that there
is little chance Korea will be placed in the category of developing countries, as
it was when the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change was adopted in 1997. Excluded
from the list of Annex 1 parties to the convention as a developing country, Korea
was exempted from a mandatory cut in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels.
As a country with per capita gross domestic product approaching $20,000, Korea
would make a mockery of itself should it make a claim to developing country
status again at the Copenhagen summit on climate change scheduled for December.
As such, the administration should keep itself from flaunting its plan to cut
greenhouse gas emissions 30 percent from the BAU model by the 2020 target year.
Korea is no longer a developing country. Moreover, it has already done much
damage to the environment as the world's ninth-largest emitter of carbon dioxide.

Moreover, the 4 percent cut from the 2005 level would look pale, given that the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is requesting that advanced nations
make reductions ranging from 25 percent to 40 percent from the 1990 levels by
2020 and 80 percent to 95 percent by 2050. The IPCC says such reductions will be
needed to maintain global warming below 2 degrees centigrade.
This is not to say a 4 percent cut from the 2005 level would cause no pain to the
nation as a whole and businesses in particular. According to one estimate, the
proposed reduction would translate into a 0.49 percent cut in gross domestic
product and a loss of 217,000 won annually to an average household. It would be
much more painful to power-generating, steel, petrochemical and other
energy-intensive industries.
The steelmaker POSCO, Korea Electric Power Corp. and other Korean businesses will
have to make deep cuts in their energy use if they are to meet the new
energy-efficiency goals to be set. The proposed 4 percent reduction in greenhouse
gas emissions is a first step toward a government-envisioned transition from
fossil energy to clean and renewable energy.
In July this year, the administration came up with a five-year "green growth"
plan, which envisions the share of new and renewable energy in total energy use
to increase from 2.7 percent to more than 6 percent by 2020. The administration
will have to establish an action plan for carbon reductions in the way it will
help generate green growth.
(END)