• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.319-357
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• 2017

The pillar of the Paris Agreement, which will define the efforts of the international community against climate change since 2020, is the INDCs submitted by each country. In this study, the INDCs of the major industrial and developing countries (EU, USA, Japan, China, India) and South Korea are reviewed and national circumstances are analyzed based on the status of industrial structure, power mix and GHG emissions. We will also present South Korea's strategies in future climate change negotiations. South Korea should ; find out the special differentiating factors favorable to Korea with which the international community can agree; and establish an interagency working group to prepare for the periodical renewal of the INDC.

• Journal of Environmental Policy
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.95-118
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• 2015

The 2015 Agreement, an initial architect of the Post-2020 Regime, is expected to be adopted at the twenty-first session of the Conference of Parties to be held in Paris in 2015. We discussed key characteristics of the Post-2020 Regime and applications of differentiation which is most contentious issue in the Post-2020 negotiation. In the Post-2020 Regime, automatic ambition increases of Parties could be accomplished through applications of the circular nature of Intented Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC) as well as the progression of mitigation efforts. In terms of differentiation, it would be better to advocate a new method to applying differentiation in the Post-2020 Regime taking into account our own national circumstances. Specifically, promotion of self-differentiation which fits nearly with the philosophy of INDC could be an alternative. In order to promote self-differentiation, rules to apply self-differentiation needs to be devised, and the purpose of such rules should be the ambition increase.

• Korea Petroleum Association Journal
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• s.296
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• pp.4-7
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• 2015

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.1038-1045
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• 2017

To address mounting concerns over global warming, the Paris Agreement was reached in December 2015, which aims to limit the increase in global average temperature. South Korea has set a highly ambitious target to reduce emissions and submitted an Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC). Based on the INDC, we investigated the impact of limiting carbon emissions on the power system and the electricity market in Korea. Through detailed simulations on assumed plausible scenarios, this work highlights a) the effects of different carbon emission targets on the annual carbon emission volumes, generation costs, and carbon price; b) the generation mix changes induced by carbon emission limits; and c) the difference in system marginal price and payments for generator owners that carbon emission constraint creates in electricity markets under three different pricing rules.

• Journal of Climate Change Research
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.91-102
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• 2018

The Korean government submitted the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC) to UNFCCC which aims to reduce 37% greenhouse gas emission for the opportunity of developing new energy industry and industry innovation by 2030 compared with Business-As-Usual scenario taking into account its international responsibilities and hosting headquarters of Green Climate Fund (GCF) secretariat. The 37% reduction is composed of 25.7% in the domestic markets and 11.3% in the international carbon markets. To achieve the reduction target in the international carbon market mechanisms, it must use the linkage of international carbon markets and develop new renewable energy technology for CDM and ODA. Finally, it must improve carbon capture storage (CCS) technology and establish domestic CCS institutional systems as soon as possible. And, it must activate CCS information exchange for the international cooperation on UNFCCC movement.

• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.565-590
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• 2016

In accordance with the global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Korean government submitted its INDC (Intended Nationally Determined Contribution) of 25.7% for domestic reduction and the total of 37% reduction by 2030 including the purchase of emission reduction permit from abroad. In this study, 25.7% reduction target is being evaluated to see its impact on domestic energy system using the integrated assessment model, GCAM (Global Change Assessment Model). Results show that electricity generation from fossil fuel technologies using coal and gas decrease by 28.0%, 13.5% while that of biomass, wind power, solar energy increase by 47.6%, 22.0% and 45.4%, respectively. It is worth noting that so called new technology such as USC (ultra supercritical power generation) does not contribute to achieving the emission reduction target and careful and quantitative analysis is required for such categorization in the future.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.479-494
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• 2017

After Fukushima incident, negative sentiment towards nuclear power has led to transition in policies that reduce the dependency on nuclear power in some countries. President Moon of Republic of Korea also announced a national plan of decommissioning retired nuclear power plants stage by stage. Therefore, nuclear power that once was considered the critical solution to energy security and climate change is now a limited option. This study aims to find an optimal energy mix in Korea's electricity system from 2016 through 2030 to combat climate change through energy transition with minimum cost. The study is divided into two different scenarios; energy transition and nuclear sustenance, to compare the total costs of the systems. Both scenarios show that electricity generated by wind technology increases from 2018 whereas that of photovoltaic(PV) increases from 2021. However, the total cost of the energy transition scenario was USD 4.7 billion more expensive than the nuclear sustenance scenario.

• Bulletin of Korea Environmental Preservation Association
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• s.418
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• pp.7-11
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• 2015

온실가스 자발적 감축목표(INDC; Intended Nationally Determined Contribution)는 공동의 책임을 강조하면서, 동시에 각자의 능력과 국가별 여건을 고려토록 하는 원칙을 갖고 있다. 형평성(equity)과 진전(no back sliding)을 고려하여, 우리의 여건을 적절히 설명하고, 우리의 목표가 얼마나 의욕적이며, 우리의 배출량이나 경제규모에 비추어 공정한지를 잘 설명하는 것이 중요하다. 우리 경제가 감당할 정도의 감축목표를 우리나라에 적합한 방법으로, 정부-산업-시민이 합의한 방법으로 합심하여 온실가스를 감축하여야 한다.

• Journal of Climate Change Research
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.373-381
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• 2016

Before the Conference of Parties (COP) 21 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 2015, most parties of UNFCCC had submitted their intended nationally determined contributions (INDCs) and to achieve their voluntary targets, some parties consider using international market mechanisms. As one of such mechanisms, Japan promoted its own bilateral mechanism called Joint Crediting Mechanism (JCM). In this study, feasibility studies and projects under JCM have been analyzed by project type, sector, country and region, which could provide some implications in designing Korea's future climate policy to achieve Korea's targets of 11.7% using international market mechanism in INDC. Since 2010, JCM has promoted 542 projects and feasibility studies in 44 countries according to the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) database. Among 542 projects, about 80% were feasibility studies implying that JCM was more focused on project identification. However, current trends of JCM show that more projects will be soon implemented based on these feasibility studies. For sectoral categorization, projects were categorized into seven sectors-energy technology, energy efficiency, renewable energy, waste management, city, strategic planning and projects related to the country's efforts to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+). JCM projects were mitigation focused with more than 70% of projects were related to energy efficiency, renewable energy and energy technology. At the regional and country level, JCM is highly focused on Asia and especially, more than 100 projects were developed in Indonesia. Based on the analysis of JCM, in order to develop bilateral international mechanism for Korea, it is worthwhile to emphasize that Korea considers Asian countries as her partner. In addition, Korea may consider the collaboration with Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) to implement projects identified by Korea and Asian partner countries. Furthermore, strategically, it is recommendable to develop jointly with Japan who has already capacity and networks with other Asian countries to mitigate GHG emissions. Such financial resources from MDBs and Japan may contribute to meet the 11.3% of GHG reduction target from abroad according to INDC of Korea.

• Journal of Climate Change Research
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.357-368
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• 2018

The Paris Agreement, adopted in 2015, requires global mitigation actions by all countries, whether they are developed or developing countries. All member countries prepared and communicated a greenhouse gas reduction target, formally called the Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC). There has been some concern regarding whether the INDCs communicated are sufficient to achieve the emissions reduction needed to hold the increase in global temperature to $2^{\circ}C$ above pre-industrial levels. How to address this emissions gap in an equitable and fair manner remains controversial. Beginning in the year 2023, global stocktaking under the Paris Agreement will be performed by the Conference of the Parties to assess progress towards temperature goals. The present study, based on various composite indicators reflecting equity, fairness, ability and efficiency, analyzed the GHG reduction targets of eleven major countries and the ambitiousness of these targets. Employing share indicators and comparative ratio indicators (resulting in eight composite indicators), this study showed that when share indicators are applied, Korea's appropriate reduction requirement rate is relatively low at 1~2%. However, when comparative ratio indicators are applied, Korea's appropriate reduction requirement rate increases dramatically to 6~11%. In a similar vein, when share indicators are applied, Korea's 2030 target is very ambitious compared to other countries, while the opposite is seen with comparative ratio indicators. This strongly suggests that Korea needs to apply more share indicators than comparative ratio indicators when discussing the equitable and ambitious role of Korea in the climate debate.