• Journal of Climate Change Research
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.453-460
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to analyze the potential quantity of Korean Offset Credits (KOC) resulting from Certified Emission Reductions (CER) in 98 domestic Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects that were registered with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) as of the end of 2016. Our results show that the total amount of potential KOC is 62,774 kt CO2eq. The potential KOC is only 23.4% of the total CER Issuance. During the first phase, this will be 3.2% of the allocated volume. This is because many projects are related to Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS), HFC-23, and adipic acid N2O. There is a strong bias in some sectors and projects which could act as market distortion factors. Therefore, it is necessary to expand the target CDM project and activate non CDM offset projects. RPS projects bring fundamental changes to the energy sector, and it is worth reconsidering their acceptability. A wide variety of policy incentives are needed to address strong biases toward certain sectors and projects. The offset scheme has the advantage of allowing entities to reduce their GHG emissions cost effectively through a market mechanism as well as enabling more entities to participate in GHG reduction efforts both directly and indirectly. In contrast, having an inadequate offset scheme range and size might decrease the effort on GHG reduction or concentrate available resources on specific projects. As such, it is of paramount importance to design and operate the offset scheme in such a way that it reflects the situation of the country.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Illuminating and Electrical Installation Engineers
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.13-18
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• 2008

The global warming due to greenhouse gases is now the hottest issue all over the world. The world has been under $CO_2$ war since the Kyoto Protocol was opened for signature on December 11, 1997 in Kyoto, Japan. The Kyoto Protocol now covers more than 164 countries globally as of July 2006. Countries that ratify this protocol commit to reduce their $CO_2$ emissions, or engage in emissions trading. Korea is also expected to obey the Protocol starting in 2013, which will give a serious shock especially to the electric power industry. The power plants burning the fossil fuel produce more than 20 percent of national total $CO_2$ emission. This paper resents the calculation of the amount and cost of $CO_2$ emission w.r.t. generator MW output and its application to power system operation. The $CO_2$ emission function is derived using the input-output coefficients of the thermal power plants. The optimal power system operation considering $CO_2$ emission and its cost is demonstrated on a five-bus sample power system.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2006.07a
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• pp.420-421
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• 2006

The cost-effective reduction of greenhouse gas(GHG) emission to avert the most severe impacts of climate change remains one of the widely accepted priorities for global action. In order to facilitate cost-effective abatement strategies, the Kyoto Protocol introduced three mechanisms, or flexible instruments, the Emissions Trading(ET), the Joint Implementation(JI) and the Clean Development Mechanism(CDM). The CDM enables Annex I countries to the Kyoto Protocol to partially meet cost-effectively their emission reduction commitments by undertaking GHG mitigation Projects in developing countries, which do not have any GHG abatement obligations and where the emission reductions are cheaper. One of the major barriers hampering the wide spread implementation of CDM is the high transaction costs associated with the initial identification of promising CDM projects. This paper presents development of a pre-validation program of CDM. The developed program may provide a useful aid to potential investors and project developers as a supportive pre-evaluation tool, and may become an effective tool for the promotion of renewable energy and fuel switching projects.

• Asian Journal of Innovation and Policy
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.1-11
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• 2020

In 2015, the State Council of South Korea finalized its goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by "37% from the business-as-usual (BAU) level" by 2030 across all the economic sectors. Of that reduction, 4.5% will be achieved overseas by leveraging Emission Trading Systems (ETS) aided by international cooperation. In line with this, considering both the demand for and supply of the carbon market increased after the Paris agreement, the importance of public diplomacy in negotiating climate change actions also rose. This study aimed to analyze the impact of international discussions such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) on domestic policies and the types of public diplomatic climate change policies pursued by different government agencies, and draw implications from them. This study attempted to find implications from the Korean government's public diplomacy on climate change for developing countries. Lessons learned regarding Korea's public diplomacy would provide a practical guidance to the Asian developing countries, which are suffering from environmental crisis at a phase of rapid economic growth.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.293-305
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• 2009

Methane, as a greenhouse gas, is some 21~25 times more detrimental to the environmental than carbon dioxide. Landfills generally constitute the most important anthropogenic source, and methane emission from landfill was estimated as 35~73 Tg per year. Biological approaches using biocover (open system) and biofilter (closed system) can be a promising solution for older and/or smaller landfills where the methane production is too low for energy recovery or flaring and installation of a gas extraction system is inefficient. Methanotrophic bacteria, utilizing methane as a sole carbon and energy source, are responsible for the aerobic degradation (oxidation) of methane in the biological systems. Many bench-scale studies have demonstrated a high oxidation capacity in diverse filter bed materials such as soil, compost, earthworm cast and etc. Compost had been most often employed in the biological systems, and the methane oxidation rates in compost biocovers/boifilters ranged from 50 to $700\;g-CH_4\;m^{-2}\;d^{-1}$. Some preliminary field trials have showed the suitability of biocovers/biofilters for practical application and their satisfactory performance in mitigation methane emissions. Since the reduction of landfill methane emissions has been linked to carbon credits and trading schemes, the verified quantification of mitigated emissions through biocovers/biofilters is very important. Therefore, the assessment of in situ biocovers/biofilters performance should be standardized, and the reliable quantification methods of methane reduction is necessary.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.50 no.3
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• pp.277-287
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• 2015

This paper addresses limitations of land-change modeling application in the context of REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation). REDD is an international conservation policy that aims to protect forests via carbon credit generation and trading. In REDD, carbon credits are generated only if there is measurable quantied carbon sequestration activities that are additional to business-as-usual (BAU). A "reference level" is defined as simulated baseline carbon emissions for the future under a BAU scenario, and predictive land-change modeling plays an important role in constructing reference levels. It is tested in this research how predictive accuracies of two land-change models, namely Geographic Emission Benchmark (GEB) and GEOMOD, vary with respect to different spatial scales: Xishuangbanna prefecture and Yunnan province. The accuracies are measured by Figure of Merit. In this Chinese case study, it turns out that GEB's better performance is mainly due to quantity (e.g., how many hectares of forest will be converted to agricultural land?) rather than spatial allocation (e.g., where will the conversion happen?). As both quantity and allocation are crucial in REDD reference level setting it appears to be fundamental to systematically analyze accuracies of quantity and allocation independently in pursuit of accurate reference levels.

• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.189-224
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• 2015

To meet sectoral emission target by 2020 and prepare for the emission trading scheme from 2015, decomposition analysis of energy consumption and GHG emission is required by 18 subsectors in industry sector where emission targets are established. Log Mean Divisia Index decomposition method was used to analyze factors' effects on energy and emission in the industry sector and by 18 subsectors from 2004 to 2011. Industrial energy consumption was increased due to the production effect and energy intensity effect. However structure effect contributes to the decrease of energy consumption. In terms of emissions (including indirect emission due to electricity consumption) in the industry sector, only structure effect contributed to the emission reduction. Factors' effects by subsectors were different. Cement industry, which is included at Nonmetal shows different results from those of Nonmetal industry and machinery industry, which is a subsector of Fabricated Metal, was also similar. In this regard, we should not apply the policy implications from decomposition analysis of aggregated industry such as Nonmetal or Fabricated Metal to its subsectors uniformly and develop a differentiated policy for each subsector industry.

• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.167-198
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• 2011

The Korean government recently announced greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions reduction target as 30% of 2020 business as usual (BAU) emission projection. As carbon emissions trading is widely used to achieve reductions in the emissions of pollutants, this study deals with the sectoral allocation of initial carbon emission permits in Korea. This research tests the effectiveness of a variety of allocation rules based on the bankruptcy problem in cooperative game theory and hybrid input-output tables which combines environmental statistics with input-output tables. The impact of initial emission permits allocation on economic growth is also analyzed through green growth accounting. According to the analysis result, annual GDP growth rate of Korea is expected to be 4.03%, 4.23%, and 3.67% under Proportional, Constrained Equal Awards, and Constrained Equal Losses rules, respectively. These rates are approximately from 0.69% points to 0.13% points lower than the growth rate of 4.36% without compulsory $CO_2$ reduction. Thus, CEA rule is the most favorable in terms of GDP growth. This study confirms the importance of industry level study on the carbon reduction plan and initial carbon emission permits should reflect the characteristic of each industry.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.54 no.6
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• pp.733-741
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• 2021

Globally, in accordance with the goals set forth in the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, each country has established and declared a reduction target for carbon neutrality by 2050. The roadmaps for establishing long-term greenhouse gas emissions development strategies and setting reduction targets have been announced. As the international community accelerates the transition to the net-zero society, 128 countries have declared net-zero by the end of 2020, and the net-zero declaration continues to expand around G20 member states. In December 2020, Korea announced the "2050 Net-zero Strategy" to establish a foundation for simultaneously achieving carbon reduction, economic growth, and improved quality of life for the people through active response to the net-zero, and pursuing policy tasks in stages to do this. Comprehensive carbon management is insufficient due to the lack of comprehensive carbon management due to the departure from the areas of mandatory reduction, such as the GHG energy target management system and the GHG emissions trading offset system implemented to reduce greenhouse gases in Korea. Currently, there is no cases for estimation or calculation of carbon dioxide emissions for the Mine Reclamation projects. It is reviewed the standard methods proposed by domestic and foreign carbon emission calculation methods and proposed appropriate carbon emission estimation methods for the Mine Reclamation projects in this study.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.17 no.8
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• pp.502-507
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• 2016

The transition from a carbon economy based on fossil fuels to a hydrogen economy is necessary to ensure energy security and to combat climate change. In order to pursue the transition to a hydrogen economy while achieving sustainable economic growth, a preliminary study into the establishment of the necessary infrastructure for the future hydrogen economy needs to be carried out. This study addresses the economic and environmental interactions in a dynamic computable general equilibrium (CGE) model focusing on the economic effects of the introduction of renewable energy into the Korean energy system. Firstly, the introduction of hydrogen results in an increase in the investment in hydrogen production and the reduction of the production cost, ultimately leading to GDP growth. Secondly, the mandatory introduction of renewable energy and associated government subsidies bring about a reduction in total demand. Additionally, the mandatory introduction of hydrogen energy into the power sector helps to reduce CO2 emissions through the transition from a carbon economy-based on fossil energy to a hydrogen economy. This means that hydrogen energy needs to come from non-fossil fuel sources in order for greenhouse gases to be effectively reduced. Therefore, it seems necessary for policy support to be strengthened substantially and for additional studies to be conducted into the production of hydrogen energy from renewable sources.