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Kim Sung-woo

Greenwashing: implications of recent amendment to KFTC guidelines

Greenwashing, a portmanteau of the words “green” and “whitewashing,” refers to the act of making false, deceptive or misleading statements about non-eco-friendly products as if they are eco-friendly.

2023-09-10 16:30

Carbon Border Adjustment is just around the corner ... Now what?

The Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) is a measure to address gaps in carbon prices between countries. Its main purpose is to prevent so-called carbon leakage, a phenomenon that occurs when production facilities move from countries with strict carbon regulations - which often leads to weakened competitiveness in terms of business environment - to countries with looser carbon regulations.

2023-08-13 14:32

Evolution of Korea's emissions trading system

Myron Scholes, a professor at Stanford University and a 1997 Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences, remarked during his visit to Korea last June that the carbon credit market would grow enormously in the future.

2023-07-09 16:30

Climate change in trade

It has been a recent trend that trade is often linked with the environment in international societies. While an increased number of WTO agreements and FTAs continued to lower cross-border tariffs, many countries also introduced non-tariff barriers to protect their own domestic industries.

2023-06-11 16:30

How to best utilize Basic Plan for Carbon Neutrality and Green Growth

Last month, the Presidential Commission on Carbon Neutrality and Green Growth (of which I am member) passed the 1st Basic Plan for Carbon Neutrality and Green Growth (Basic Plan), which was ultimately approved and confirmed at a Cabinet Meeting on April 11. The Basic Plan, designed as a countermeasure to the global climate crisis and government-led support for sustainable growth, is to be established every five years over the next 20 years (from 2023 through 2042).

2023-05-07 16:30

Climate technology: a challenge and opportunity

On March 20, 2023, 195 member states of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change, unanimously adopted the Sixth Assessment Report on the climate crisis following the panel's 58th session in Switzerland. According to the report, it is “more likely than not” that the Earth's temperature will rise by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2040, which goes against the target set at the Paris Climate Accords.

2023-04-09 16:40

South Korea to get up to speed for international greenhouse gas reduction

South Korea pledged to reduce its emissions of 291 million tons of greenhouse gas (GHG) by 2030. Of the 291 reduction, 11.5 percent, or 33.5 million tons, must come from international mitigation projects, which include technical support, investment and procurements conducted to achieve GHG reduction targets as stipulated under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement.

2023-03-12 16:40

Korea's RE100 policy and sustainability

Countries around the world are creating increasingly favorable conditions for renewable energy supply. Take the examples of the U.S.' Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the European Union's plan to expand the supply of renewable energy, RePower EU.

2023-02-12 16:40

Most popular search terms in 2022 and implications for companies

What was the most popular search term in 2022? Perhaps many would think “Extraordinary Attorney Woo,” the Netflix top-chart Korean drama, or “Qatar World Cup.” Surprisingly, the answer was “climate change.” Announcing that the No. 1 search term of the year was “climate change,” Google Korea noted last December that environmental issues have been garnering increasingly more attention from the public.

2023-01-08 16:40

New environment policy and regulations expected to aid rise of hydrogen

Among the various elements discovered by humans so far, hydrogen is known as the element that is the most abundant, lightest and simplest in structure. Water, which covers more than 70 percent of the earth, is made up of hydrogen and oxygen. An important property that is missing in hydrogen's profile is that hydrogen has the strong potential to become a key source of our next-generation clean energy, which is essential to cope with the climate crisis.

2022-12-11 16:50

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