The influence of new carbon emission abatement goals on the truck-freight transportation sector in South Korea

As South Korea is one of the largest global carbon emission contributors, its government has committed to mitigating the environmental impact of carbon emissions by assigning specific goals for carbon emission abatement to each major industry sector. The South Korean government has recently put forward four national abatement plans for carbon emissions from the projected 2030 business-as-usual level. The government elected to follow the third of the four plans. However, it is possible that the government might adjust to future economic fluctuations by going forward with one of the other three plans. This study focuses on the four carbon emission abatement goals as they relate specifically to the truck transportation industry, which is a subsector of the larger transportation industry. Since it is expected that truck-freight volume will continue to grow, this study utilizes a system dynamics modeling tool to develop a carbon-emission-abatement plan model to measure the abatement amounts required for South Korea's truck-freight sector from the year 2015 to the year 2030, while investigating the effects of uncertainty in truck-freight volumes and technology developments on those abatement amounts. The results indicate that the truck sector needs to abate carbon emissions by 272.77 M kg CO2 for Plan One, 356.27 M kg CO2 for Plan Two, 476.88 M kg CO2 for Plan Three, and 580.79 M kg CO2 for Plan Four by the year 2030. In addition, this study formulates a simple mathematical model for determining the optimal transportation volumes of a combination of three trucks types and rail transport for the assigned carbon emission quota.