An alliance of environmental groups in South Korea has criticized President Moon Jae-in’s pledges made during an online global climate summit.   

In a joint statement on Friday, Climate Strike, which claims 300 civic groups as its members, called the president’s promises “greenwashing.”  

During a Leaders' Summit on Climate hosted by U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday, Moon promised to raise South Korea's carbon emission reduction target, also known as nationally determined contribution(NDC), and report it to the UN this year. He also pledged to suspend state financing for foreign coal power projects. 

The civic alliance, however, accused the Moon administration of significantly falling short of last year's revision contrary to the spirit of the Paris Accords, alleging that it has only revised the method by which it is to achieve the target and did not quantitatively upgrade its carbon cutting goal.

Regarding coal power projects, the group said the president’s promise is long on rhetoric and should be accompanied by practical actions such as withdrawing existing investment by public financial institutions.