CO2 Emissions and Their Abatement Measures in the Transportation Sector of Korea = CO2 Emissions and Their Abatement Measures in the Transportation Sector of Korea

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

As concerns on global warming by the greenhouse effect escalate, national efforts to respond to climate changes are growing in Korea. This study was, by an integrated simulation framework, to address the emission of CO2 , which is the most contributing greenhouse gas to global warming, and assess the policy options to abate CO2 emissions in the transportation sector of Korea. The applied model of this study was AIM(Asia-Pacific Integrated Model for Evaluating Policy Options to Reduce GHG Emission and Global Warming Impacts) originally developed by the National Institute for Environmental Studies of Japan. Based on AIM, the conditions of new energy-saving technologies selection was assessed under the various scenarios regarding different rates of carbon taxes, subsidies and the existence of a driving restriction system. There are 3 major findings of the study. First, the carbon tax may not play any tole in promoting the market entry of energy-saving or low CO2 emitting vehicles in the future since the cost savings made by new low CO2 emitting vehicles alone are large enough to allow themselves to enter into the market. Second, while the energy consumption in the transportation sector is expected to grow very rapidly and high, the appropriate policy measures to curtail CO2 emissions in the transportation sector are very limited under the present technology development pace. Thus, various approaches other than the just imposition of carbon tax such as the nationwide driving restriction system, are required. Third, when the carbon tax may not be effective, subsidies, which are given to the buyers of energy-saving vehicles, could be another option to reduce CO2 emissions in the transportation sector. However, it requires a huge amount of financial sources and moderate rates of carbon taxes can not cover all the necessary funds. Also, subsidies are considered to be incompatible with polluter-pays-principle. Therefore, subsidies to R&D on electric cars, energy-saving vehicles and other CO2 abatement equipments are recommended.