Assumptions
Historical emissions
Historical emissions in South Korea were taken from the national inventories submitted to UNFCCC (UNFCCC, 2019). UNFCCC data are displayed in SAR GWPs and are updated in AR4 based on detailed data by gas. The 2030 NDC target was calculated based on the accompanying BAU scenario (Republic of Korea, 2015). The target is calculated excluding LULUCF emissions.
Pledge and post-2020 contribution
BAU projections for the 2020 pledge were taken from the Third National Communication (Republic of Korea, 2012) whilst the BAU for NDC is taken directly from the NDC pledge. We no longer consider the 2020 pledge when calculating the global temperature rise associated with the aggregated pledges of all countries. Both targets were defined in GWPs from SAR and therefore updated to AR4 in our assessment by harmonising given data with UNFCCC historical data.
Current policy projections
Current trend projections are based on the BAU scenario from the 7th Edition of APEC Energy Demand and Supply Outlook (APERC, 2019) and the US EPA non-CO2 emission projections until 2030 (US EPA, 2019). Non-energy related CO2 emissions are assumed to remain constant at the 2014 level. For the upper end of the range, we use the APERC BAU scenario directly. Under this scenario, the share of renewables in total electricity generation in 2030 reaches 7.6%. There are, however, other analyses that project higher renewable electricity shares (17% by Wood Mackenzie (Wood Mackenzie, 2019) and 14% by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission (Keramidas et al., 2018)). Therefore, the upper bound emissions projections represent the electricity mix as projected by the Apec Outlook, while the lower bound emissions projections represent an adapted electricity mix in which renewable electricity share reaches 17% by 2030 by replacing coal-fired power generation. The average electricity CO2 emission factors for fossil fuel-fired power generation displaced by renewables in 2030 per fuel type were assumed to be similar to the 2016 levels as reported by IEA (IEA, 2018).
To estimate the impact of the new “Plan for Electricity Supply and Demand”, the announced shares of generation per technology were firstly scaled up to cover the 1.2% of generation that was not allocated to a particular generating technology. These shares were then multiplied by the total generation under a BAU scenario in 2030 (APERC, 2019) decreased to 579.5 TWh to take into account the expected decrease in electricity demand (MOTIE, 2017). Total CO2 emissions were then calculated using the electricity CO2 emission factors used for the current policies scenario projections described above. The calculated emissions levels were similar to the lower bound projections of the current policies scenario.
Global Warming Potentials
The CAT uses Global Warming Potential (GWP) values from the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) for all its figures and time series. Assessments completed prior to December 2018 (COP24) used GWP values from the Second Assessment Report (SAR).
Further analysis
Latest publications
Stay informed
Subscribe to our newsletter