Environment Minister Lee Maan-Ee presented the initiative to freeze emissions until 2012 in a report to President Lee Myung-Bak, a ministry official said.

The nation's annual carbon dioxide emissions doubled between 1990 and 2005 to 591 million tonnes. The world's 13th-largest economy stands ninth in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, according to Yonhap news agency.

In recent years, the rate of increase has eased. But if left unchecked, emissions are expected to rise 2.2 percent every year until 2012.

"Therefore, the freeze will actually be a reduction," Park Pong-Kyun, a deputy director of the ministry, told AFP.

Among other steps such as energy conservation, the ministry plans to raise the number of buses powered by natural gas to almost 22,000 by 2010.

South Korea, classified as a developing country, is not bound by the Kyoto Protocol, the UN agreement mandating emissions reductions for industrialised nations through 2012.

However it was one of about 130 countries promising to take firm steps to curb emissions and fight global warming at a UN climate change conference in Bali last December.

The Kyoto Protocol requires rich nations to slash emissions by an average of five percent between 2008 and 2012 from 1990 levels.

Environmental groups say South Korea's plan is far from enough.

"This is outrageous. This means South Korea, an industrial powerhouse, will do little about cutting greenhouse gas emissions," Lee Yu-Jin, an official with Green Korea United, an environmental group, told AFP.

The Korean Federation for Environmental Movement has called for a 20 percent reduction by 2020.

"A freeze is hardly welcome when other countries seek to cut several percent," Ahn Joon-Gwan, a member of the group, told Yonhap.

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