문 대통령, "깨끗한 공기, 국민의 권리,... 2022년까지 30% 이상 줄일 것"
It's World Environment Day.
To mark the occassion, President Moon Jae-in vowed to drastically cut the country's chronically high level of fine dust over the next three years.
The South Korean leader also called on everyone to be involved in fixing the problem, highlighting there's no single solution to handling environmental issues.
Shin Se-min shares with us his remarks.
President Moon says people deserve clean air.
While attending a ceremony in Changwon, Gyeongsangnam-do Province, marking World Environment Day,... the president shared his goal of reducing the chronically high level of fine dust and prided his administration for making efforts to achieve that goal.
"By changing the paradigm of the government policy, we will reduce the fine dust output by more than 30-percent by 2022, compared to 2016."
He pointed to coal-fired electrical power plants as one of the main causes of fine dust,... and cited that his administration has closed four of the ten aged power plants in the nation so far.
Moon also referred to another major source of fine dust particles, old diesel cars,... and said he plans to have more green cars fill the roads.
"The plan is to expand charging infrastructure so that 430-thousand electric vehicles and 67-thousand hydrogen powered vehicles are running by 2022."
The president then introduced commercial buses running on hydrogen gas the first such kind in the nation.
Starting with 35 hydrogen buses in Changwon,... the government plans to expand the program to six other cities,... including Seoul, Busan, Ulsan and Gwangju this year. By 2030, the government aims to have 1-point-8 million hydrogen cars on the road,... with 660 charging stations installed.
The government is devising plans to better the air quality through a presidential committee headed by former UN chief Ban Ki-moon and in cooperation with neighboring countries.
But the president said parliament needs to cooperate on the supplementary budget bill that includes a chunk of budget worth 1-point-2 billion dollars,... solely designated for cleaning the air.
He added there is not a single solution to resolving environment related issues like fine dust,... and called on the rival political parties to help fix the problem.
Shin Se-min, Arirang News.