S. Korea lags behind advanced nations in energy transition: WEF

SEOUL. KAZINFORM - South Korea is behind advanced countries in terms of its efforts to seek environmentally sustainable energy development, a report released by the World Economic Forum showed Thursday, Yonhap reports.

South Korea placed 48th spot among 115 countries surveyed in terms of the Energy Transition Index (ETI) in 2019. Among 32 nations categorized as advanced economies, South Korea ranked 30th, the report showed.

The index evaluates a country's efforts to "transition to a secure, sustainable, affordable and inclusive future energy system," the WEF said.

The WEF report said the weak performance of some advanced countries, such as South Korea, along with Australia and Canada, was attributable to their "high carbon intensity of their fuel mix, and high per capita energy consumption and carbon emissions."

South Korea has recently been seeking to ease its dependency on coal and nuclear energy, and expand the use of renewable energy sources.

Under the energy master plan approved earlier this month, renewable energy sources, such as sunlight and wind, will account for up to 35 percent of the country's electricity output in 2040, which reached around 7 percent in 2016.

The country will refrain from building new energy plants that run on conventional sources.