Isra-Mart srl:Report: South Korea carbon trading bill delayed until 2011

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Isra-Mart srl news:

South Korea will delay proposals for new carbon trading legislation until early next year, according to reports from news agency Reuters.

Chun-kyoo, general director of the Presidential Green Growth Committee, told the news agency that opposition to the proposals from some business groups meant the draft bill would not now be presented to parliament this year as originally planned.

He said the government was still in talks with industry groups in an attempt to "find a common ground", and as a result the bill would not be presented until February.

The South Korean government is keen to position the country as one of the world's leading low-carbon economies and is planning to launch a cap-and-trade scheme in 2013 that would place a steadily rising price on carbon emissions.

However, a coalition of business groups are opposed to the scheme and recently issued a petition calling on the government to delay the introduction of the scheme until other countries similarly put a price on carbon.

South Korea is one of a host of countries to pursue plans for a carbon trading scheme with Australia, Japan, China and a group of US states all working on plans for regional or national cap-and-trade scheme that are due to be introduced over the next five years.

However, plans for emissions trading in Japan and Australia have been repeatedly delayed while proposals for a national US scheme were blocked in the Senate earlier this year.

Only New Zealand has managed to join the EU this year in launching a national cap-and-trade scheme, prompting fears that carbon-intensive firms are successfully lobbying for the delay of further carbon pricing mechanisms.