S. Korea making measured progress toward start of carbon trading

South Korea’s government is to meet with the country’s biggest emitters in May to discuss the start of the cap and trade in 2015.

Lee Hyung Sup, deputy director of the Ministry of Environment told Bloomberg in an interview that the government plans to select an exchange for greenhouse gas emission in the second half of this year and will decide how to allocate free allowances to an estimated 480 emitters by June 2014.

Emitters will be given free allowances from 2015 until 2017, announced by the government after rejecting requests for giveaways through 2020. 

South Korea’s newly inaugurated president Park Geun Hye has pledged a 30 percent cut in emission by 2020, and allowed emitters to trade emission permits. The country will begin cap and trade in 2015.

“The government’s preparation is on track,” regardless of the change in leadership, to start the system in 2015, said Lee, one of 40 members of a state task force formed last month. “We will estimate emissions by emitters and map out allocations based on those projections.”

Korean companies and buildings have produced 668.8 million metric tons of CO2 equivalents in 2010 with a 9.8 percent increase, the biggest annual increase since 2003.