South Korea’s tourism/travel industry is dying as the corona virus cuts global transportation. From January to April in 2020, consumption spending on tourism and leisure in South Korea decreased by 21.2% and 11 trillion won from the same period last year. If current trends continue throughout the first half of the year, tourism revenues are...
Author: Ellie Jimin Kim (Ellie Jimin Kim)
South Korea Has a Strong Biodiversity Plan That is Not Being Effectively Implemented
According to data from the Ministry of Environment in 2014, Korea has decreased forests by 2.1%, farmland by 15.9% and tidal flats by 20.4% over the past 20 years. Accordingly, new policies are being implemented to reflect the conservation of biodiversity. The government is supporting agriculture, forestry, and fisheries to operate in a sustainable way....
South Korea Beating COVID-19 & Discussing a “Green New Deal”
The South Korean government provides COVID-19 emergency disaster relief funds to all of its citizens. It is an unprecedented amount of money that any Korean citizen can receive. The amount of funding depends on the number of household members; a household of one person can get roughly 330 U.S. dollars a month, a family of...
South Korea’s Most Recent Energy Plan Focuses on Energy Conversion
Since the establishment of South Korea’s new climate system in 2015, the direction of the government’s energy policy has been to achieve the twin goals of “Nuclear Phase-out” and “Fossil Fuel Phase-out.” The country seeks to foster eco-friendly future energy to promote de-fossilization. Also, achieving nuclear phase-out in a way that stops the extension of...
East Asia’s First Mandatory Emissions Trading System
South Korea does not have a Carbon tax, but does have a trading system. Korean Emission Trading System (KETS) has been in operation since January 2015, becoming East Asia’s first nationwide mandatory ETS and the second-largest carbon market after the EU ETS. KETS is designed to play an important role in meeting Korea’s 2030 NDC...
National Assembly Declares Fine Dust to be a Social Disaster in South Korea
Nothing is more important than breathing for survival. But even breathing is threatened in Korea. The South Korean National Assembly officially declared the fine dust issue as a ‘social disaster’ in March 2019. And in December 2019, fine dust was selected as the most important environmental issue of 2019 in a vote of citizens. According...