The city of Suwon in Gyeonggi Province reduced greenhouse gas emissions last year, securing 8,298 tons of emission allowances.
On the 24th, Suwon announced that the greenhouse gas emissions from 10 waste treatment facilities subject to the greenhouse gas emissions trading system (including public sewage treatment plants, resource recovery facilities, and Gwanggyo water purification plants) amounted to 191,286 tons last year, which was 8,298 tons less than the total allocated amount of 199,584 tons.
In 2021, Suwon borrowed and used 10,943 tons of emission allowances, but by securing a surplus of 8,298 tons last year, the burden of purchasing greenhouse gas emission allowances has been significantly reduced.
Suwon explained that it minimized greenhouse gas emissions by operating waste treatment facilities efficiently and increasing the separate collection of plastics.
In particular, the public sewage treatment plants increased methane gas recovery, and the water purification facilities installed solar power generation equipment to reduce electricity consumption. Additionally, water supply facilities and food waste feed facilities improved their infrastructure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Implemented in January 2015, the "Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading System" is one of the government's core strategies for reducing national greenhouse gas emissions. It sets allowable greenhouse gas emission amounts for local governments and companies and allows them to buy and sell emission allowances.
The emissions trading system allocates emission amounts by reducing a certain percentage from past years' emissions. Since the population of local governments has an absolute impact on emission calculations in the waste sector, and Suwon's population is steadily increasing, purchasing greenhouse gas emission allowances has been an unavoidable situation.
A Suwon city official stated, "Due to the nature of the greenhouse gas emissions trading system, Suwon belongs to the group of local governments that need to purchase large amounts of emission allowances, but we will systematically respond by setting 'waste reduction' as a goal. We will operate waste treatment facilities efficiently and promote strong waste reduction policies to secure surplus emission allowances."
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