The Korea Local Administration Review

The role of local governments for carbon net-zero is being emphasized. To effectively achieve the national greenhouse gas reduction target, a differentiated strategy and approach that reflects the local greenhouse gas emission characteristics and reduction conditions are required. This study aims to analyze the decoupling degree of regional local governments and draw implications for carbon net-zero. Since greenhouse gas emissions are closely related to economic activities, decoupling, which indicates the relationship between the two, is critical in climate change discussions. To this end, we calculated the short-term decoupling index for each year from 2001 to 2018 to figure out the trend and then compared and analyzed the degree of decoupling by region through regression analysis on a 10-year cycle. As a result of the analysis, the decoupling indices of 16 metropolitan cities and provinces showed an overall improvement trend with the change of time, but there were differences in the degree of decoupling by region. By period, decoupling was strengthened in the period after 2010 compared to 2001 to 2010 in all regions except Jeju and Chungnam. In particular, a statistically significant level of absolute decoupling was observed in four regions: Ulsan, Gyeongnam, Daegu, and Gangwon. According to the logarithmic mean Divisia index (LMDI) analysis, the energy intensity improvement effect was found to be a major factor driving decoupling, showing results consistent with previous studies. Considering these differences in regional mitigation pathways and capacities, a flexible approach that grants local authority and autonomy for carbon net-zero is needed, along with long-term policy goals and means to strengthen accountability of regional local governments.