South Korean Parliament passes carbon trading bill

South Korea has become the latest country to adopt a domestic cap-and-trade scheme, following the passing of a new bill at the country’s National Assembly yesterday.

The new cap-and- trade system, to be implemented by 2015, received the full backing of both ruling and opposition parties.

“The bill is needed to cope with global climate change and, domestically to reduce emissions of greenhouse gas efficiently,” Kim Jae Kyung, a member of the ruling New Frontier Party, said prior to the unanimous 148-0 vote. 

At the United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen in 2009, the President of South Korea Lee Myung Bak promised to cut the country’s carbon emissions by 30 percent from forecast levels by 2020. The President’s goals have been strongly opposed by some of the country’s largest companies, who claim that any such plans will hit industry hard.

The decision to introduce a cap-and-trade scheme follows an agreement put together at last year’s climate talks, where over 200 countries signed an accord to introduce a globally recognised emission scheme from 2015, which come into effect from 2020.

“Korea becomes an early adopter in Asia” of a cap-and- trade program, Kang Hee Chan, a senior researcher at the Korea Environment Institute told Bloomberg.

“Korea joins Australia and China, which plan to introduce the program in 2015,” he added.

South Korea is the fastest-growing producer of greenhouse gases among all industrialized democracies. The world’s eighth-largest carbon emitter saw its emissions of greenhouse gases rise from 350 to 640 million tonnes between 1990 and 2011, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

 

Images: Climate Action Stock Photos