South Korea’s 2024 GHG Emissions Edge Down 2% to 691.58 Mt CO2e — but NDC Arithmetic Is Tightening Fast

South Korea’s national greenhouse gas inventory body has released a preliminary 2024 emissions total of 691.58 million tonnes CO2-equivalent, confirming a downward trend that nonetheless falls well short of the annual reduction pace required to reach the country’s 2030 climate target — particularly as key industrial sectors recorded worsening emissions intensities even as output declined.

Calculated under the 2006 IPCC accounting guidelines required for Paris Agreement reporting, the 691.58 Mt figure represents a drop of 14.19 million tonnes — roughly 2% — from the previous year’s preliminary total. The Greenhouse Gas Inventory and Research Center (GIR) simultaneously released a parallel estimate under the older 1996 IPCC methodology — used for tracking progress against Korea’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) — which put 2024 preliminary emissions at 638.97 million tonnes, down 9.63 million tonnes year-on-year. Against 2018, the NDC base year, confirmed emissions are now 93.89 million tonnes lower under this framework.

Sectoral trends diverge sharply. The power generation and transformation sector provided the clearest positive reading: despite total electricity demand growing 1.3% to 595.6 TWh, sector emissions fell 5.4% to 218.34 million tonnes as coal-fired generation contracted 9.6% while renewable output expanded 8.6% and nuclear rose 4.6%. Industry was the more difficult story. At 285.90 million tonnes, industrial emissions edged up 0.5%, and the sub-sector data reveal an intensity problem running deeper than the headline. Petrochemical feedstock output rose 6.3%, lifting sector emissions 4.4%, while emissions intensity improved marginally from 1.65 to 1.62 tonnes CO2e per tonne of product. The refinery sector was more troubling: petroleum product output grew only 2.4% yet emissions rose 6.1%, and reported intensity worsened from 15.7 to 16.3. Steel and cement gross emissions fell as output contracted — crude steel output down 4.8%, clinker down 9.3% — but both sectors recorded deteriorating or flat emissions intensities, indicating structural abatement investment has not kept pace. Semiconductor and display manufacturing reduced emissions through expanded high-temperature scrubber systems that decompose fluorinated process gases, though economy-wide hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) emissions rose 4.8%. GIR notes that because refrigerants persist in equipment for two to twenty years after charging, the upward HFC trend is expected to continue despite a government phase-down roadmap announced in July 2024.

The buildings sector fell 2.8% to 43.59 million tonnes as warmer average temperatures (rising from 13.7°C to 14.5°C) cut heating demand, though total building energy use including electricity rose 3.9%. Transport fell just 0.4% to 97.46 million tonnes: new zero-emission vehicle registrations declined from 168,000 in 2023 to 151,000 in 2024, limiting the effect of a 4.2% reduction in diesel car numbers. Agriculture fell 2.7% on a reduced rice cultivation area, and waste sector emissions dropped 3.4% as landfill volumes continued their gradual decline. Carbon sinks strengthened 1.8% to 40.16 million tonnes, aided by a near-elimination of forest fire damage — the area burned fell 97.4% — and lower land conversion from forestry.

GIR Director Choi Min-ji acknowledged that economic deceleration and rising average temperatures have contributed to the recent downward trend, and stated that reaching the 2030 NDC will require substantially stronger action, including a major expansion of renewable energy capacity.

Background

GIR has issued preliminary national emissions estimates approximately one year ahead of officially confirmed totals since 2020, providing early visibility for policymakers and market participants. The confirmed 2024 figure will go through the National Greenhouse Gas Statistics Management Committee — chaired by the Vice-Minister of Environment — before formal publication expected in the second half of 2026.

The dual-methodology publication — 2006 IPCC for Paris Agreement compliance, 1996 IPCC for domestic NDC tracking — reflects Korea’s transitional accounting arrangements. Under the NDC framework, the preliminary 638.97 Mt reading implies a remaining gap of approximately 202 million tonnes to close by 2030, which GIR calculates requires annual reductions of 3.6% or more. Critically, 75 million tonnes of that total is to come from sinks and removal activities — including international credits and carbon capture, utilisation, and storage — rather than purely domestic abatement. The First Basic Plan for Carbon Neutrality and Green Growth, adopted in March 2023, maps year-by-year sectoral targets to 2030, with required annual cuts steepening sharply as the deadline approaches.

Why It Matters

For industrial operators and the policymakers who oversee them, the 2024 sub-sector data carry a pointed message. Sectors whose output actually contracted — steel, cement, refining — nevertheless recorded flat or worsening emissions intensities per tonne of product. This pattern suggests that abatement investment is not materialising at the pace implied by the 2030 trajectory; it also means any output recovery driven by economic conditions will feed directly through to higher absolute emissions. If compliance market caps tighten along the First Basic Plan’s schedule, this structural underperformance will be priced in future permit markets.

The 75-million-tonne international credit and removal component of Korea’s NDC pathway is a materially significant signal for carbon market participants. At that scale, sovereign compliance demand of this kind — to be met through internationally recognised removals and emission reductions — could make Korea a meaningful buyer in the Article 6 and high-integrity voluntary credit markets in the latter half of this decade. Project developers with removal methodologies and appropriate credit vintages have a clear interest in tracking Korea’s NDC delivery trajectory. The deceleration in domestic transport electrification reinforces the view that the international credit component is unlikely to shrink: with new EV and hydrogen vehicle registrations falling year-on-year and hybrid growth only partially compensating, the transport sector is not on track to self-correct.

The HFC challenge illustrates a limit of price-based abatement mechanisms. Gases already charged into refrigeration and cooling equipment that will remain in service for up to twenty years cannot be addressed by carbon pricing alone; mandatory recovery, phased product standards, and end-of-life disposal requirements are the primary policy levers in this sub-sector.