South Korea on Verge of Carbon Trading Scheme

On Wednesday, a key South Korea committee voted a carbon trading scheme forward, sending it to South Korea’s national Legislation and Judiciary Committee. The carbon trading scheme could be voted on in parliament on February 16. As in many places, the scheme isn’t without controversy, so this is rather big news. The scheme, if it is eventually approved, should go into motion in 2015.

“President Lee Myung Bak is keen to see the legislation passed ahead of a general election that could see the long-running measures stalled once again,” Business Green reports.

“Under the planned legislation, a national cap-and-trade scheme similar to that deployed in Europe will be introduced in 2015, covering almost 500 carbon-intensive firms.”

In the Pacific region, New Zealand already has such a trading scheme and Australia’s approved one that should go into place in 2015. The three could eventually be combined, allowing for carbon trading between companies in those three countries.

“The latest set of proposals contains a number of concessions designed to appease industrial firms opposed to the plans. Most notably, the government has said that 95 per cent of the carbon allowances distributed during the first two phases of the scheme between 2015-2017 and 2018-2020 will be provided for free.”

Of course, some energy and industry firms aren’t even happy with 95% free allowances for 5 years and are still fighting the proposal.

Note that South Korea has a plan to create 1.5 million jobs from clean energy by 2030, it is investing over $7 billion in smart grid development and $85 billion in a ‘Green New Deal’, and its cleantech investments per GDP dwarf anyone else’s.

Source: Business Green
South Korea flag via erjkprunczyk