Gwangmyeong Mayor Park Seung-won Proposes Establishment of "100 Carbon-Neutral Leading Local Governments"

On the 20th, Gwangmyeong Mayor Park Seung-won met with Minister of Climate, Energy and Environment Kim Seong-hwan to propose the establishment of a national project called "100 Carbon-Neutral Leading Local Governments."

The "100 Carbon-Neutral Leading Local Governments" project aims to select local governments that implement carbon-neutral policies tailored to their regional conditions and characteristics as leading regions to achieve the national carbon-neutrality goal, and to disseminate excellent outcomes nationwide through intensive government support.

At the meeting, Mayor Park stated, "Since carbon neutrality requires the power of citizens, local governments that are closely connected to regional conditions and citizens' daily lives must concretize policies and lead citizen participation to achieve true carbon neutrality," and emphasized, "Systematic government-level support is needed so that local governments can execute region-specific policies and create results."

In response, Minister Kim replied, "I will actively review ways to enhance the implementation capability of local governments' carbon-neutral policies and disseminate excellent cases nationwide."

The "100 Carbon-Neutral Leading Local Governments" project proposed by Gwangmyeong City establishes field-specific policy implementation standards, selects leading local governments based on them, and provides necessary support for business implementation.

The city also proposed a system that annually evaluates implementation performance and strengthens linkages with national treasury subsidies for excellent cities, thereby drawing out voluntary participation and tangible outcomes from local governments.

This was modeled after Japan's "Decarbonization Pioneering Regions" policy, under which Japan aims to establish more than 100 pioneering regions by 2030 and provides decarbonization-related grants while selecting leading regions in stages.

Gwangmyeong City's eco-friendly delivery culture project links the conversion of electric two-wheelers and charging infrastructure with local currency incentives to reduce carbon emissions from the delivery process while also promoting local economic revitalization. It was previously introduced as a leading project in the transport sector signature project at the Korea-style Green Transition (K-GX) Strategy National Report briefing and received attention.

Minister Kim stated that if Gwangmyeong City's eco-friendly delivery culture demonstration model is successfully promoted, the achievements will serve as a basis for nationwide expansion. Additionally, he proposed that Gwangmyeong City collaborate with the K-GX Green Delivery Pilot Project to be promoted by the Climate Ministry.

Mayor Park stated, "Gwangmyeong City will share carbon-neutral policy experiences accumulated in the field with more regions and work with the government to achieve tangible carbon reduction results," and added, "We will continuously discover and disseminate carbon-neutral policies that citizens can feel the effects of."