Election and climate
Parties race to win over ‘climate voters’
The upcoming general elections for the 22nd National Assembly are just 20 days away and political parties are in a frenzy, vying to secure voters’ support by making pledges across a broad spectrum of issues.
In a recent nationwide poll, 33.5 percent of voters were identified as “climate voters.” Additionally, nearly two-thirds of the respondents said they would contemplate voting for a candidate or party with divergent political views if they were in favor of their climate policy pledges.
Consequently, unlike in the past when pledges aimed at addressing the climate crisis were predominantly associated with progressive parties, today, even conservative parties are proactively presenting a variety of climate and energy policies, in an effort to appeal to climate voters.
As examples, let’s see the climate and energy pledges of the People Power Party (PPP), the Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) and the Green and Justice Party (GJP), which are the top three in terms of the number of seats in the current parliament without taking satellite parties into account.
Voters can indirectly discern a party’s emphasis on a specific sector by examining the order of pledges listed. They can conveniently review the top 10 pledges on the National Election Commission’s homepage, as officially submitted by the three parties, to gauge their prioritization.
The ruling PPP positioned its climate and energy pledge as the last among its top 10 promises, contrasting with the opposition DPK, which placed it third, and the GJP, which prioritized it as the first pledge. The PPP’s foremost pledge focused on addressing the low birthrate, while the DPK’s primary commitment centered on enhancing people’s livelihood.
For climate mitigation, the PPP focuses on the roles of carbon-free nuclear and renewable energy. The ruling party especially stresses small modular reactors, offshore wind energy, CCUS, or carbon capture, utilization and storage, technology and hydrogen.
The DPK promises to increase renewables’ share of the country’s power production to 40 percent, reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 52 percent by 2035 and phase out coal-fired power plants by 2040. The main opposition party especially emphasizes RE100, or renewable electricity 100 percent, as it is critical to the global competitiveness of Korean corporations.
The GJP says it will increase the share of renewable energy in electricity generation to up to 50 percent by 2030 and 100 percent by 2050. The coalition of the Justice Party and Green Party Korea especially focuses on deploying renewable energy on public land, supporting one solar PV for one household and increasing offshore wind power.
Both the PPP and the DPK promise to strengthen the Korea Emissions Trading Scheme (K-ETS) by increasing the paid allocation. While the PPP doesn’t specify how much it will increase, the DPK proposes increasing the paid allocation ratio up to 100 percent by 2030 for the power sector.
The GJP emphasizes the implementation of a carbon tax as a key aspect of its climate policy. The DPK also advocates for introducing a carbon tax. However, the GJP goes further by suggesting the implementation of a climate dividend alongside the carbon tax. Notably, legislation regarding carbon tax and dividends was previously introduced in the 21st National Assembly but did not undergo a thorough discussion.
Both the ruling PPP and the opposition DPK have put forward proposals to introduce a carbon contract for difference (CCfD) system. This mechanism involves a contract between the government and a company, aiming to incentivize businesses to decrease carbon emissions. The CCfD establishes a fixed carbon price over a specified period, thereby reducing investment risks for companies and sharing the cost burden between public and private entities.
Since the K-ETS has not been successful in reducing domestic industrial carbon emissions, the pledges of the three parties provide a positive signal that there will be more active discussions on how to reduce industrial GHG emissions by not only regulating but also incentivizing the industry.
For climate adaptation, all the three parties propose a variety of pledges. The PPP promises to increase the adaptation infrastructure and strengthen the system to respond to the extreme weather events.
The DPK suggests establishing a climate disaster contingency scenario for large-scale multi-disaster response and introducing a national liability system for agricultural disasters in response to extreme weather events.
The GJP promises to investigate all rooftop and semi-basement homes and to prepare support measures for heavy rainfall and extreme temperatures.
Needless to say, it’s important that pledges don’t just remain pledges but are fulfilled. Regardless of the outcome of the election, political parties should continue to implement the policies they promised to address the climate crisis in the 22nd National Assembly. This should start with the establishment of a permanent Special Committee on Climate Crisis in the parliament, which all the three parties have promised.