Food & Climate
As fossil fuels have grabbed headlines at COP30, major coal producer South Korea kicked off the second week of the Belém conference with an actual concrete pledge: the country will phase out most of its coal power by 2040, while a funding request from Oman was rejected, a decision Saudi Arabia described as “discriminatory.”.
Operating the seventh-largest coal fleet in the world, Korea announced on Monday that it will join the Powering Past Coal Alliance (PPCA), an initiative launched in 2017 by the UK and Canada to encourage countries to wean themselves off the planet’s largest source of emissions. Oil and gas exporter Bahrain is another new member.
Asian industrial giant Korea said that out of 62 operating coal power plants, it will commit to retiring 40 of them by 2040. The phase-out date of the remaining 22 plants “will be determined based on economic and environmental feasibility”, according to a report seen by Food & Climate.
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Korean Minister of Environment Kim Sung-Hwan said at an event announcing the pledge that the country will play a “leading role” in the energy transition.
“South Korea is known as a manufacturing powerhouse. Unfortunately renewable energy has taken a low share in our power mix, but going forward we are determined to foster renewable energy industries,” he told journalists. “We will show the world that we can create a decarbonised energy transition.”
Asked about a fossil fuel transition roadmap – an idea floated around by many governments in Belém – Sung-Hwan said “humanity and all of the governments should work together to achieve a decarbonised green transition”, adding that “COP30 will be an important momentum”.
UK climate minister Katie White said Korea was taking an “ambitious step”, and that they can “reap the rewards that we are seeing from our own clean energy transition”.
Despite a slight drop in recent years, coal remains South Korea’s biggest source of electricity generation, providing about a third of its power. Nuclear and gas supply most of the rest.
As of 2024, coal was the biggest source of electricity generation in South Korea (IEA)
Row over climate funds for wealthy developing countries
A dispute at last month’s Green Climate Fund board meeting resurfaced in ministers’ speeches at COP30 today, with developing countries crying foul over a decision by some developed nations to deny Oman funds for an early-warning system because of its above-average GDP per capita.
Five developed countries – the UK, France, Sweden, Switzerland and Denmark – opposed giving Oman a $15-million grant. Eighteen countries on the Fund’s board – including several developed countries – had wanted to give Oman the funds, but the GCF’s high bar for decisions meant they were out-voted.
France’s representative told the meeting Oman was a “high-income country whose GDP per capita is equivalent to that of some EU member states”, saying that meant giving the Gulf state scarce GCF grants was “simply not acceptable”. Exceptions to this rule can, however, be made for small island developing states, he added.
That argument was criticised by fellow board members, with the Saudi and Ghanaian representatives saying it amounted to “discrimination”, while Pakistan’s envoy accused countries of using “political considerations”, which he did not spell out.
At today’s “high-level segment”, Palau’s Environment Minister Steven Victor, for the Alliance of Small Island States, criticised “arbitrary conditions based on per capita incomes and population size by some board members”. Iraq’s environment minister, speaking on behalf of the G77+China, expressed “great concern” about “a minority of [GCF] board members representing a few developed countries” blocking the funds for Oman, according to “Climate Change News”.