Assessing the consistency of simultaneous tripling of nuclear and renewable energy capacity in Korea: Evidence from the IPCC AR6 scenarios

At COP28, the international community, including Korea, committed to tripling renewable energy capacity by 2030 and nuclear capacity by 2050. These pledges are embedded within Korea's carbon neutrality framework and the 11th Basic Plan for Long-Term Electricity Supply and Demand. This study examines the consistency of Korea's clean energy policies with Paris-compliant trajectories derived from the IPCC AR6 scenario database. Our analysis demonstrates that Korea's current electricity plan exhibits a slower phase-out of fossil fuel capacity relative to Paris-aligned pathways. Moreover, while the renewable energy tripling target demonstrates strong alignment with global decarbonization scenarios, the majority of IPCC AR6 models project constrained nuclear expansion, rendering the nuclear tripling pledge inconsistent with prevalent long-term pathways. As Korea advances its energy transformation, enhanced science-based modeling and rigorous scenario analysis are imperative to ensure policy coherence with global decarbonization objectives and support evidence-informed decision-making.