It’s Thursday, October 29, and South Korea is the latest country to promise to go carbon neutral by 2050.
Last month, China pledged to zero out its carbon emissions by 2060. Earlier this week, Japan promised to do the same by 2050. Now, South Korea has jumped on the net-zero bandwagon, pledging to become carbon neutral by 2050.
“Together with the international community, we will actively respond to climate change and target carbon neutrality by 2050,” South Korean President Moon Jae-in said in a speech on Wednesday.
The path to carbon neutrality for the country includes putting more than 1 million electric vehicles and about 200,000 hydrogen cars on the road by 2025. Moon’s plan also includes creating urban forests, boosting recycling, and remodeling public buildings to run on renewable energy.
Moon was reelected in April on a platform that included a Green New Deal to slash emissions and create jobs. Moon unveiled the details of his $35 billion Green New Deal in July, but that proposal fell short of setting a deadline for phasing out emissions.
Currently, South Korea generates less than 6 percent of its electricity from renewable sources and 40 percent from coal. The country declared pollution a “social disaster” last year, and youth activists sued the South Korean government for inaction on climate change in March.
The Smog
Need-to-know basis
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