South Korea makes carbon neutral pledge

South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in has pledged the country will reach net zero emissions by 2050, as part of the government’s ‘green new deal’ that will invest some £5.5bn on green infrastructure, clean energy and electric vehicles and end the nation’s reliance on coal.

The announcement followed just days after the Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, who entered office in September, announced that Japan will be carbon neutral by 2050 – although little detail was given as to how this will be achieved.

Earlier, in September 2020 China’s President Xi Jinping’s announcement that China is aiming to be carbon neutral by 2060 took many industry watchers and those at the UN General Assembly in New York by surprise (see Petroleum Review’s November 2020 issue for more details).