South Korea's air quality is notoriously bad at certain times of the year, specifically winter and spring when citizens often have no choice but to deal as best they can with the bad air and its subsequent health implications.
Smog can envelop not only the Seoul metropolitan area but the entire country for days at a time. It is often the case that people in Korea will work hard all week only to find that their weekend plans have been somewhat compromised due to fine dust warnings.
Asia is at the center of this public health issue, with billions of people exposed to dangerous levels of air pollution. It is a problem felt acutely in Korea, where the average person's exposure to the dangerous PM2.5 particles is the greatest of any OECD member nation.
PM2.5 levels in Seoul are about twice those of other major cities in developed countries.
However, in a recent Korea Times article by reporter Ko Dong-hwan, the Seoul Metropolitan Government's environmental division announced in January 2023 that Seoul recorded some of its best air quality in over a decade during 2022.
The clearer skies were due to a mixture of pertinent government policies finally bearing fruit and favorable climatic conditions over the peninsula that year.
According to research conducted by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in 2015, the main industries impacting air quality in Korea were chemicals, steel, shipbuilding, automobile production, barbecue restaurants and bathhouses.
In total, these industries accounted for 39 percent of South Korea's GDP at the time, according to UNEP.
Korea has 60 coal-fired power plants, one of which, Dangjin Power Station, located in South Chungcheong Province, emitted 34 million tons of carbon dioxide in 2018, the third-highest amount in the world that year.
In 2019, the South Korean government enacted a new law aimed at decreasing air pollution. This included measures such as boosting the number of electric vehicles, lowering power plant emissions and enhancing public transportation. To minimize emissions from industries, the government also implemented measures such as shutting down coal-fired power plants and instituting a cap-and-trade system.
However, like many countries, South Korea, in the past, tended to prioritize economic performance over environmental concerns.
This prioritization is even more pronounced in the case of its neighbor, China, which is in a league of its own regarding coal-fired power plants, with 1,118 according to a survey conducted in 2022 by Global Energy Monitor.
Coal is one of the largest contributors to air pollution in Korea. The health impacts of exposure include cardiovascular diseases, exacerbated asthma symptoms, chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder and other respiratory diseases.
In 2017 some findings, made jointly by NASA and South Korea's National Institute of Environmental Research, found that over 50 percent of the air pollution in Korea is homegrown.
The fact that a slight majority of the air pollution is emanating from Korea itself is perhaps somewhat promising, in that it is much easier to implement policies here versus dealing with pollution carried over from neighboring countries.
As Barry Lefer, a NASA scientist, explained in a 2017 NPR interview, "You can't do anything about the transboundary pollution, whereas you can do something about your local sources."
The good news
Regarding China, some recent findings by NASA show that over the past decade, the country's once-pollution-filled skies have gradually improved. In fact, data shows a continuous downward trend from the moment the country's air quality action plan was announced in 2013.
PM2.5 levels have significantly decreased in China since 2013, with the average yearly exposure in 2021 standing at 33.3 micrograms per cubic meter. This figure is just within China's official air-quality limit of 35, but still much higher than the World Health Organization's recommendation of 5 micrograms per cubic meter.
Several efforts, including retrofitting coal-fired power plants' smokestacks with filters and other equipment to remove sulfur dioxide from emissions, have proved to be most effective in China.
It's complicated
However, at the same time, China has continued to build more coal-fired power plants. Indeed, it is the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world. Yet, it is also true that China invests more than any other nation in renewables.
Retrofitting smokestacks and enacting other laws aimed at reducing industrial emissions can only go so far. If China is to effectively combat air pollution, the main energy source itself must become cleaner.
Korea needs to do more and faster. But unless China, an industrial juggernaut, really starts to focus on cleaner energy and even more climate policies, then Koreans will continue to suffer for the foreseeable future whatever measures Seoul chooses to implement.
Antony David Antoniou is a copyeditor at The Korea Times.
QOSHE - Air pollution in South Korea: a long way to go - Guest Columnaccount_circleinfobrightness_mediumcancel
South Korea's air quality is notoriously bad at certain times of the year, specifically winter and spring when citizens often have no choice but to deal as best they can with the bad air and its subsequent health implications.
Smog can envelop not only the Seoul metropolitan area but the entire country for days at a time. It is often the case that people in Korea will work hard all week only to find that their weekend plans have been somewhat compromised due to fine dust warnings.
Asia is at the center of this public health issue, with billions of people exposed to dangerous levels of air pollution. It is a problem felt acutely in Korea, where the average person's exposure to the dangerous PM2.5 particles is the greatest of any OECD member nation.
PM2.5 levels in Seoul are about twice those of other major cities in developed countries.
However, in a recent Korea Times article by reporter Ko Dong-hwan, the Seoul Metropolitan Government's environmental division announced in January 2023 that Seoul recorded some of its best air quality in over a decade during 2022.
The clearer skies were due to a mixture of pertinent government policies finally bearing fruit and favorable climatic conditions over the peninsula that........
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