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President Moon Jae-in delivers a keynote address at the COP26 climate summit on Nov. 1 in Glasgow, Scotland. (Yonhap News)

While South Korea has publicly adopted an aggressive posture on tackling climate change — promising to reduce carbon emissions by 40% by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 — it continues to rank near the bottom in terms of climate policy and implementation.

On Tuesday, the 17th Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI) was published by Germanwatch, an international assessment organization, and NewClimate Institute, a climate research organization. The CCPI evaluates the climate policy and implementation level of the European Union and the 60 countries that are responsible for 90% of greenhouse gas emissions around the world.

South Korea ranked No. 59 among the 64 spots on the CCPI chart. The top three spots were left empty because no countries did well enough to merit a “very high” rating. Only five countries were rated lower than Korea: Taiwan, Canada, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Kazakhstan.

Last year, Korea ranked 53rd out of 61. In short, Korea remains at the bottom of this international assessment despite several climate initiatives it has announced this year. The highest-rated countries were Denmark, Sweden, Norway and the UK.

17th Climate Change Performance Index rankings (provided by Solutions for Our Climate)

The CCPI is calculated by scoring each country in the four areas of greenhouse gas emissions, renewable energy, energy use and climate policy, then adding up the four scores. Korea scored “very low” in greenhouse gas emissions and energy use and “low” in renewable energy and climate policy.

At a climate summit this past April, President Moon Jae-in announced that Korea would stop investing in overseas coal. The Carbon Neutrality Act took effect in August, creating a legal mandate for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by at least 35% from 2018 levels by 2030. But experts say that’s not enough to keep global temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels, and Korea’s climate policy scored poorly this year, just as last year.

“The fact that Korea still ranks low on the CCPI despite making climate declarations and announcing climate goals several times this year suggests that actual policies to implement those announcements haven’t been very meaningful. The fundamental issues that are impeding the achievement of carbon neutrality need to be identified and addressed,” said Han Ga-hee, a researcher with Solutions for Our Climate.

By Lee Keun-young, senior staff writer

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]