Moon to attend Major Economies Forum on climate

President Moon Jae-in will attend a virtual meeting of the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate on Friday to discuss global warming ahead of the UN climate summit, known as COP26, to be held in Glasgow, Scotland in October.

The MEF is a US-led initiative that aims to ramp up supplies of clean energy while reducing carbon emissions. US President Joe Biden will convene the Friday meeting to strengthen the climate ambitions of the 17 members, including Australia, Canada, China, the EU and Japan.

Moon, who has set out plans to make the country carbon-free by 2050, is expected to reaffirm the commitment at the virtual gathering. Moon has recently signed into law the carbon-cutting commitment, and next month his office is set to unveil concrete steps to achieve carbon neutrality.

Earlier at a separate climate summit in April, Moon set more drastic cuts in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 than previously revealed, though he fell short of providing an exact number. He had pledged to cut emissions 24 percent by 2030 compared to 2017 levels.

At the summit, Biden also announced a new target to reduce US emissions by up to 52 percent in 2030 compared to 2005 levels, urging other countries to increase their targets as well.

China, which is the largest emitter of climate-warming greenhouse gases, has said it aims to bring emissions to a peak before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. But doubts remain, as Beijing left out a cap on energy consumption in its latest five-year development plan revealed in March.

By Choi Si-young (siyoungchoi@heraldcorp.com)