By Jane Han
Staff Reporter

You're a 38-year-old office worker who commutes from Bundang to Seoul via subway on 120-minute roundtrips, five days a week. Your family of four pays about 40,000 won for electricity and 70,000 won for gas every month. Leaving your car at home to save fuel, you probably consider yourself pretty eco-friendly. What is your annual carbon footprint?

It comes about to be around 1,370 kilograms of carbon dioxide a year. It falls short of the average Korean's carbon emission per year of 3,000 kilograms, according to the Korea Forest Research Institute, but you still need to plant at least 4,000 trees to offset your footprint.

``It's critical for people to first assess their carbon dioxide emission and understand what their toxic footprint constitutes,'' said Yoon Soo-jin, an environment professor of Seoul National University.

From driving, showering, eating to watching television, almost all activities in our daily lives contribute to the greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change.

Yoon, attending a local climate change symposium earlier this year, said, ``Korea and Koreans can no longer sit idle in cutting back CO2 emissions because it is one of the biggest contributors.''

She said last year's United Nations report shows that Korea is currently ranked the 9th biggest greenhouse gas emitting country.

Before that, the OECD had already urged in 2006 that the nation's carbon dioxide emissions relative to its gross domestic product are among the highest of OECD countries and double those of France.

``Advanced countries take aggressive measures to proactively promote campaigns that cut back carbon emissions,'' said Choe Jae-chun, professor of eco-science at Ewha Womans University, adding that environmental awareness is corporately weak here.

Internationally, carbon footprint calculators have been one of the easiest and most effective ways for ordinary citizens to regularly assess their carbon emissions. Such calculations were unavailable here, but two local organizations recently introduced similar services online for domestic residents.

The Korea Research Forest Institute (carbon.kfri.go.kr) and Green Korea (safeclimate.greenkorea.org) offer carbon footprint calculators for those wanting to know exactly how many tons of carbon dioxide their lifestyle choices create each year.

U.K.-based Carbon Footprint, a carbon footprint management company, says some immediate offsetting efforts include defrosting fridge/freezers regularly, buying locally produced food, filling the kettle with only as much water as you need and doing your weekly shopping in a single trip.

Korea had no obligations so far to reduce greenhouse gases as it was classified as a developing nation, but it will join a worldwide effort starting 2013, which will add more pressure to cut back emissions.

jhan@koreatimes.co.kr