South Korea is promising to shrink its reliance on coal power as part of its pledge to reduce carbon emissions that contribute to climate change, but that ambition is at odds with the US’ push for more natural gas exports under US President Donald Trump.
At last year’s UN climate talks, the South Korean Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment announced plans to retire most of the country’s coal-fired power plants by 2040 and to at least halve its carbon emissions by 2035.
Experts say this shows that South Korea, a major coal importer with one of the world’s largest fleets of coal plants, wants to speed up its renewable energy transition, which lags behind its neighbors and global averages.
However, as part of trade deals with Trump, Seoul is raising imports of US liquefied natural gas (LNG). Climate activists contend such plans might conflict with the country’s pledges to help curb climate change and could lock South Korea into a fossil fuel-dependent future.
Talks are underway for South Korea to invest US$350 billion in US projects and purchase up to US$100 billion of US energy products, including LNG, a natural gas cooled to liquid form for easy storage and travel. It burns cleaner than coal, but still causes planet-warming emissions, especially of methane.
South Korea’s overall LNG imports might not increase if it offsets purchases of more US natural gas by reducing imports from other sources such as Australia and the Middle East.
Still, it is unclear how South Korea would “manage and consolidate all this somehow contradictory planning regarding its energy sector,” said Michelle Kim, an energy specialist for the US-based Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.
Liberal South Korean President Lee Jae-myung, who won a snap election in June last year, campaigned for stronger climate commitments. They had softened under his conservative predecessor Yoon Suk-yeol, who was ousted after a short-lived martial law declaration.
“As the global temperature rises, we all need to responsibly take climate action, and Korea will have a stronger sense of responsibility in tackling the climate crisis,” South Korean Minister of Climate, Energy and Environment Kim Sung-hwan said in an interview with The Associated Press.
South Korea’s goal to cut carbon emissions by 53 to 61 percent of 2018 levels fell short of climate activists’ expectations. Business lobbies representing major manufacturers had proposed a 48 percent emissions reduction target.
“This range presents an effort by the government to accommodate two very different ways of thinking about the economic and climate future of the nation,” said Kim Joo-jin of the Seoul-based advocacy group Solutions for Our Climate.
The South Korean government made the ambitious commitment to increase its clean energy use even after Trump’s sweeping “America first” tariffs spurred energy negotiations between Seoul and Washington.
As part of its broader efforts to avoid higher tariffs, South Korea offered to import more LNG from the US, but the final trade deal has not been announced.
The agreement still under negotiation could last between three to 10 years, an industry analysis and US federal documents showed.
Depending on the deal’s duration, South Korea might import 3 million to 9 million tonnes of US LNG a year.
LNG made up almost one-fifth of South Korea’s total energy supply last year, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said. The South Korean government’s target was to cut that to 10.6 percent by 2038.
South Korea risks its climate goals if the pending trade deal increases the total volume of imported LNG, which would likely lead to an oversupply issue and the excess burning of gas to justify the deal, Greenpeace researcher Insung Lee said.
“If we just replace coal plants with LNG, that means the coal exit actually doesn’t lead to a green transition and merely shifts Korea’s addiction from coal to gas, which undermines the whole spirit of climate action,” Insung Lee said.
Renewable energy generated 7 percent of South Korea’s domestic power in 2022, the IEA said. South Korean government data show that had increased to 10.5 percent last year, still one of the lowest levels among leading economies.
Japan, with an economy more than twice as big, generates 21 percent of its power from renewable sources. Spain, whose economy is about the same size as South Korea’s, gets 42 percent of its power from renewable sources.
Clean energy provided about 30 percent of global electricity production in 2023.
Nuclear power produces a major share of South Korea’s domestic energy, with government data showing that nuclear sources accounted for 31 percent of total electricity generation last year.
“We will transition into a new energy system that focuses on renewables and nuclear, while phasing out coal,” Kim Sung-hwan said.
He said South Korea would use LNG as a “complementary or emergency energy source” to make up for irregularities in renewable energy supplies.
South Korea early last month set another goal of boosting its offshore wind power capacity to 4 gigawatts, about 10 times the current level.
South Korean companies that do not cut back on carbon emissions might find that to be a competitive disadvantage, Michelle Kim said.
Many global industries, including shipping and aviation, face pressure to reduce their emissions by providing incentives for low emitters and creating deterrents for high ones, she said.
“This is a lot of risk,” she said. “South Korea needs to speed up renewable energy deployment and come out from high dependency on the fossil fuel industry.”
At last month’s climate talks, South Korea joined the Powering Past Coal Alliance, a group of businesses, organizations and governments promoting the green energy transition.
That is mainly a symbolic move, Global Renewables Alliance’s Bruce Douglas said.
“But it signifies very clear government intention to move away from fossil fuels and towards clean power,” he said.
South Korea imports virtually all its coal, largely from Australia, Indonesia and Russia, and the switch to renewables is bound to impact regional markets.
The pledge to retire 40 of South Korea’s 61 coal sites by 2040 might be “an enforced transition” for coal exporters in the Asia-Pacific region, Global Renewables Alliance’s James Bowen said.
“It’s a reality that they’re going to have to face this downturn in the market,” Bowen said. “The writing’s on the wall. One of the biggest importers in the world, one of the biggest customers, is starting to move away from coal.”
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