South Korea’s recently renewed climate commitments are colliding with ongoing trade negotiations that could increase imports of U.S. liquefied natural gas, according to the Associated Press. The potential mismatch is emerging as South Korea tries to plan its energy system around both coal retirement and new LNG demand from the United States.
At recent UN climate talks, South Korea’s Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment said it intends to retire most of the country’s coal-fired power plants by 2040 and at least halve carbon emissions by 2035. The ministry’s message came after a political shift in Seoul: South Korea’s liberal President Lee Jae Myung, who won a snap election in June, campaigned for stronger climate commitments than the previous administration, which had softened those pledges, according to the report.
In his interview with The Associated Press, inaugural Minister Kim Sung-hwan said South Korea will need to take climate action as global temperatures rise. South Korea’s government also set a broader emissions-cutting goal of reducing carbon emissions by 53% to 61% from its 2018 level, a target that climate activists said was insufficient. The report also cited that business lobbies representing major manufacturers had proposed a lower reduction range of 48%.
Officials and advocates describe a central tension: while South Korea seeks to accelerate a transition that experts say still lags behind global benchmarks, Washington’s approach during trade negotiations has included pushing for additional U.S. natural gas exports. The Associated Press reported that talks are underway for South Korea to invest $350 billion in U.S. projects and purchase up to $100 billion worth of U.S. energy products, including LNG, with the agreement still under negotiation.
Energy analysts and campaign groups said it remains unclear how South Korea will reconcile those commitments with the mechanics of power generation. Michelle Kim, an energy specialist for the U.S.-based Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, said it was “unclear how South Korea will ‘manage and consolidate all this somehow contradictory planning regarding its energy sector,’” in the AP report.
Greenpeace’s Insung Lee raised a similar concern, arguing that simply switching from coal to gas would not deliver the “green transition” climate policy is meant to achieve. Lee said, “If we just replace coal plants with LNG, that means the coal exit actually doesn’t lead to a green transition and merely shifts Korea’s addiction from coal to gas, which undermines the whole spirit of climate action.” The report noted that LNG burns cleaner than coal but still produces planet-warming emissions, including methane, which makes the policy question about the pace and scale of fossil fuel reduction.
The report said South Korea’s LNG imports may not rise overall if new U.S. purchases offset declines from other suppliers such as Australia and the Middle East. But climate advocates argued that even a re-sourcing shift could still lock in fossil-fuel dependency, particularly if additional LNG is used to cover power reliability gaps as coal plants retire and renewable generation expands.
South Korea’s broader power mix helps explain the tradeoff. The report said renewable energy supplied 7% of South Korea’s domestic power in 2022, and that government data put renewable generation at 10.5% last year—still characterized as low among leading economies. It also cited that nuclear power produced a major share of domestic electricity, with nuclear sources accounting for 31% of total generation last year, and that South Korea plans to rely on both renewables and nuclear while phasing out coal. Kim, the energy minister, said in the AP report that South Korea will use LNG as a “complementary or emergency energy source” to cover irregularities in renewable supply.
The Associated Press also placed the coal exit in trade and market context. South Korea joined the Powering Past Coal Alliance at last month’s climate talks, a move the report described as mainly symbolic. Bruce Douglas of the Global Renewables Alliance said it “signifies very clear government intention to move away from fossil fuels and towards clean power,” and the report said South Korea imports virtually all its coal, largely from Australia, Indonesia and Russia—meaning the planned transition could affect regional coal markets.
Coal transition plans can also become an “enforced transition” for exporters, the report said, citing James Bowen of Climate Analytics. Bowen said, “The writing’s on the wall,” arguing that one of the world’s biggest coal importers is starting to move away from coal, even as the country’s LNG trade negotiations remain in motion and subject to uncertainty about how long any U.S.-South Korea energy deal could last.