South Korea Doubling Its Emissions Reduction Target for 2013

Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or follow us on Google News!

 
The South Korean government has recently announced that it will be requiring businesses to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by double this year’s target next year, in preparation for carbon trading beginning in 2015.

20121015-183725.jpg

The government’s Ministry of Knowledge Economy said that industrial and power sector businesses will have to reduce emissions by at the very least 3 percent in 2013, twice the 1.4 percent reduction target for 2012.

This significant move is designed to boost the country’s international competitiveness and to get big emitters ready for the introduction of a carbon trading platform in 2015.


 
“The three per cent target for next year equates to a reduction of 17.2 million metric tonnes of CO2 equivalent, across 377 large businesses and other carbon intensive corporations,” Business Green reports.

“The government expects that industrial and power entities will account for around 97 per cent of the country’s total emissions next year, which is expected to be around 589.8 million metric tonnes of CO2e.”

The most carbon intensive firms are being given very specific targets. As examples, the steelmaker POSCO is being required to reduce emissions by at least 2.48 million tons, “[Hyundai Steel is] facing a reduction target of 487,000 tonnes, and Ssangyong Cement [is] having to cut emissions by 443,000 tonnes.”

Firms that don’t meet their quotas will be fined.

Source: Business Green
Image Credits: Seoul via Wikimedia Commons


Have a tip for CleanTechnica? Want to advertise? Want to suggest a guest for our CleanTech Talk podcast? Contact us here.

Latest CleanTechnica TV Video


Advertisement
 
CleanTechnica uses affiliate links. See our policy here.

James Ayre

James Ayre's background is predominantly in geopolitics and history, but he has an obsessive interest in pretty much everything. After an early life spent in the Imperial Free City of Dortmund, James followed the river Ruhr to Cofbuokheim, where he attended the University of Astnide. And where he also briefly considered entering the coal mining business. He currently writes for a living, on a broad variety of subjects, ranging from science, to politics, to military history, to renewable energy.

James Ayre has 4830 posts and counting. See all posts by James Ayre