South Korea: The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) launched the Carbon Neutrality Grand Consortium on 5 September 2023. It aims to roll-out its US$31m CO2 neutrality technology development project, launched earlier in 2023, across all industry sectors, including cement production. The government will assist companies by investing more than 80% of the total project budget into demonstration projects by 2030.
The Carbon Neutrality Grand Consortium is split into four sub-consortiums: steel; petrochemicals; semiconductors/displays; and cement. Unusually, the results will be made available to companies that are not participating in projects of their own, in order to accelerate the exchange and spread of carbon neutrality technologies and successful outcomes across all sectors.
MOTIE’s Vice Minister Youngjin Jang stated that carbon neutrality within South Korean industry depended on the development of an innovative technologies that enable ground-breaking carbon reductions without disrupting productivity, while also pursuing solidarity and cooperation with other firms to spread the breakthrough technology across the entire industrial ecosystem.