The Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment, the energy and environment control tower, was officially launched on the 1st. Minister Kim Sung-hwan, who was appointed as the first Minister, said at the inaugural ceremony held at the government complex in Sejong, "The launch of the Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment is the first step to end the carbon civilization that relies on fossil fuels and make a great transition to a decarbonized green civilization centered on renewable energy."
Minister Kim emphasized, "As planning and execution will be promoted in an integrated manner by one ministry, we will lead the decarbonization transition across all institutional sectors, including power, industry, transport, buildings, and daily life." As a decarbonization strategy, he said he would expand the proportion of paid allocation in the emissions trading system and reinvest allocation revenue into transition investments by corporations to create a structure where reduction efforts translate directly into profits.
Minister Kim also said he would support the introduction of innovative technologies such as hydrogen-based direct reduced iron and plastic pyrolysis, and push to electrify powered machinery such as construction equipment, agricultural machinery, and ships. In the building institutional sector, the policy is to actively support the distribution of heat pumps and the spread of zero-energy buildings.
On this day, Minister Kim presented the expansion of renewable energy and industrial transition as key tasks. He said, "We will drastically increase renewable energy, which is at the bottom among OECD countries, to 100 GW by 2030, and consolidate it into national income in the form of 'sunlight pensions, wind pensions, and village pensions.'"
He went on, "We will foster carbon-neutral industries such as solar, wind, electric vehicles, batteries, heat pumps, and virtual power plants (VPP) as the next engines of national growth," adding, "To that end, we will enact the 'Carbon Neutral Industry Act' to establish a systematic and continuous support framework."