South Korean growers sue state power utility, blaming climate change for crop damage

SEOSAN, South Korea (AP) — Hwang Seong-yeol stood at the edge of a golden field, watching nervously as a combine harvester crawled through his rice, churning up mud and stalks. Its steady hum filled the damp autumn air as grain poured into a truck waiting at the other end of the muddy paddy.

It was the final day of what Hwang said was one of his toughest seasons in three decades of farming. He and other farmers feel helpless against increasingly erratic weather that they link to climate change and damage to their crops. It has complicated their work and cast uncertainty over their futures.

Hwang is one of five South Korean farmers who recently sued the state utility Korea Electric Power Corporation and its power-generating subsidiaries, alleging that their reliance on coal and other fossil fuels has accelerated climate change and damaged their crops.

The lawsuit raises questions about whether power companies’ role in driving climate change, and the resulting agricultural losses, can be quantified. It is the first of its kind in South Korea, said Yeny Kim, a lawyer with the Seoul-based nonprofit Solutions for Our Climate, who is handling the case.

The case underscores the challenges South Korea, a manufacturing power that industrialized long after the Western nations now pressuring others to abandon fossil fuels, faces in transitioning to cleaner energy.

Hwang's fields are on a reclaimed coastal plain along South Korea’s western sea, where glimmering waterways crisscross dark, rich soil and flocks of migratory geese drift overhead, moving like a giant, living quilt.

A remarkably rainy September and October followed a bitterly cold spring that stunted plant growth. Summer floods caused further damage before the wet autumn bred fungal disease.

Hwang would have preferred to harvest in drier weather but had to do so sooner as relentless rains pushed rice stalks into the soil, causing the ripe grains to sprout. That day in late October was only the second dry day after 18 straight days of rain.

“It’s really unsettling – we know how much rice we should normally get from 30,000 pyeong (25 acres) of land, but the yield has been steadily declining every year,” said Hwang, who expects this year’s harvest to be 20% to 25% below normal.

“We began to question why it’s always the farmers — who haven’t done anything wrong — that end up suffering the consequences of the climate crisis. Shouldn’t we be demanding something from those who are actually causing it?”

Farmers are “inherently vulnerable" to climate change, said Kim, the lawyer.

In an annual climate report in April, South Korea’s government detailed how a year of extreme weather events in 2024, the country’s hottest year ever, triggered a series of “agricultural disasters” of heavy summer rains that destroyed thousands of hectares (acres) of cropland, followed by weeks of intense heat that wrecked still more crops, mostly rice.

Kim and her colleagues decided to file the lawsuit, which represents plaintiffs from across South Korea, after speaking with Hwang and others at farmers markets.

They say KEPCO, which holds a monopoly on electricity transmission and fully owns its subsidiaries, should bear some blame for the destabilized weather, citing what they say are excessive carbon emissions and a lagging transition to renewable energy.

From 2011-2022, the companies produced about 30% of South Korea’s greenhouse gas emissions and roughly 0.4% of global emissions, based on Kim's analysis of publicly available data.

“Therefore, they should also bear 0.4% of the responsibility for the farmers’ losses,” Kim said.

The lawsuit seeks initial damage claims of 5 million won ($3,400) per client, an amount likely to be adjusted as the case proceeds. The plaintiffs are also symbolically seeking 2,035 won ($1.4) each to urge the government to phase out coal power plants by 2035, ahead of its 2040 target.

Renewable energy accounted for only 10.5% of the national energy mix in 2024, and the five KEPCO subsidiaries relied on coal for more than 71% of the electricity they produced that year, according to government data.

KEPCO told The Associated Press it considers carbon reduction a key responsibility, citing its goal of cutting emissions 40% by 2030 from 2018 levels. But it declined to comment further on the lawsuit, saying it “cannot share information that could influence the verdict.”

Experts say mounting debt, now at over 200 trillion won ($137 billion), that accumulated over decades of government policies that kept electricity rates low for households and industries, limits the utility's ability to expand and modernize the power grid or invest in renewable energy.

Yun Sun-Jin, a professor at Seoul National University, said the lawsuit has symbolic value but questioned whether blame could fall solely on KEPCO, given that everyone benefits from its cheap electricity.

It would be difficult to prove the utility directly caused farm losses, when climate change is a “global problem,” she said.

It does draw attention to South Korea's need for a more effective approach to renewable energy, Yun said, including deregulating solar investments, expanding sources such as offshore wind, and ending KEPCO’s monopoly over electricity transmission to encourage other competitors with diverse technologies.

South Korea is expected to reach its target of 32.95% renewable energy by around 2038 — far slower than the 33.49% average in 2023 among developed economies in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, according to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.

Some experts, including Yun, warn that South Korea’s slow shift to renewable energy could hinder its ambitions in advanced semiconductors and artificial intelligence, as its tech giants face global pressure to operate on clean power.

“Climate change and carbon neutrality are not just environmental concerns — they are economic issues, ultimately about jobs and our survival,” Yun said.

The impact of extreme weather resulting from climate change is far reaching in South Korea.

Farmers now face higher costs and must use more labor to produce the same or lower yields.

Ma Yong-un, an apple farmer in the southeastern town of Hamyang, said he is using more pesticides as pests and diseases become harder to control due to prolonged heat and humidity. The apples that thrived in cooler weather during his father's days are less plentiful and tasty, he said.

From tangerine farmers on Jeju island to strawberry growers in Sancheong to the southeast, farmers are trying to devise ways to survive.

For the first time since he began farming in 2011, Ma coated all the fruit on his 2,200 trees with a mixture of copper sulfate and lime to prevent fungal infections and skin damage from intense sunlight.

He began to think seriously about climate change in 2018, when a heavy April snowstorm damaged flower buds, leading to one of his worst harvests. Farming is becoming harder each year and he constantly wonders how much longer he can carry on.

“I think about that every day,” said Ma, who is raising two teenage boys with his wife. “The biggest concern is my children.”

A farmer works at a rice paddy in Seosan, South Korea, Monday, Oct. 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

Hwang Seong-yeol, a South Korean rice farmer, shows crops damaged by a fungal disease that spread during an abnormally rainy autumn at his rice paddy in Seosan, South Korea, Monday, Oct. 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

Farmers use combine harvesters at a rice paddy of farmer Hwang Seong-yeol in Seosan, South Korea, Monday, Oct. 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

A general view of the Dangjin Power Station is seen in Dangjin, South Korea, Monday, Oct. 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

Hwang Seong-yeol, a South Korean rice farmer, watches crops damaged by a fungal disease that spread during an abnormally rainy autumn at his rice paddy in Seosan, South Korea, Monday, Oct. 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House on Friday afternoon that he was not pleased with the way that nuclear talks had been going with Iran.

Three hours later, he gave the order to launch the operation that would take out many of the country's top leaders, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and a number of top military chiefs.

This is how the operation unfolded:

12:25 p.m. EST: Trump emerges from the White House on his way to Texas and tells reporters about the indirect negotiations with Iran: “I’m not happy with the way they’re going.”

“No, I haven't,” Trump says when asked if he had made a final decision on what to do next.

3:38 p.m. EST: As he flies aboard Air Force One to events in Texas, Trump gives the order to launch the operation, termed “Epic Fury.”

“The president directed, and I quote, ‘Operation Epic Fury approved ... Good luck,’” Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at a briefing Monday.

That order, Caine said, set up every element of the joint U.S. forces making their final preparations, with air defense batteries readying themselves and pilots and crews rehearsing their strike packages for the final time. Meanwhile, air crews began loading their final weapons and the two U.S. carrier strike groups began to move toward their launching points, Caine said.

Before giving the order, Trump asked a small group of Republican lawmakers flying with him for their feedback on a potential strike on Iran. The group debated the merits of continuing negotiations vs. going ahead with a strike, but the general sentiment among those present was that the talks were largely a delay tactic by the Iranians, according to a person with direct knowledge of the Air Force One discussion.

Among those on the plane were Texas Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, hawkish lawmakers who have both applauded Trump’s decision to strike Iran, and a handful of House Republicans from Texas. The person spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a private discussion with Trump.

As he continued on to Texas, Trump posts several times on Truth Social, including — nine minutes after giving the strike order — a directive that the U.S. government stop using Anthropic artificial intelligence technology after an unusually public dispute between the company and the Pentagon over AI safeguards.

4:03 p.m. EST: Landing in Texas, Trump speaks with reporters at the Port of Corpus Christi, fielding questions about the negotiations. Again, he says he's “not happy” but did not indicate that an operation had been approved. He did not answer a question on how close he was to making a decision on strikes.

“I’d rather not tell you,” Trump says. “You would have had the greatest scoop in history, right? Yeah.”

1:15 a.m. EST: The actual operation begins, according to a timeline that Caine laid out Monday.

“Across every domain — land, air, sea, cyber,” U.S. forces “delivered synchronized and layered effects designed to disrupt, degrade, deny and destroy Iran’s ability to conduct and sustain combat operations on the U.S. side,” Caine said.

At the Pentagon briefing, Caine said the operation “included thousands of service members from all branches, hundreds of advanced fourth- and fifth-generation fighters, dozens of refueling tankers, the Lincoln and Ford carrier strike group and their embarked air wings."

He said munitions and fuel supplies kept flowing and had support from a vast network that included intelligence and surveillance. He also noted that more forces are still flowing into the region.

The operation follows months of work by the CIA to track the movements of senior Iranian leadership, including Khamenei. Intelligence was shared with Israel, and the timing of Saturday's strikes was adjusted as a result, according to a person familiar with the operation who like others was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

In Tehran, explosions are heard, and Israel's defense minister declares a state of emergency.

A barrage of three strikes in three locations hit within a single minute — killing Khamenei and some 40 senior figures, including the head of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard and the country’s defense minister, an Israeli military official said.

4:37 p.m. EST: On his Truth Social social media site, Trump announces Khamenei's death, saying the supreme leader was “unable to avoid our Intelligence and Highly Sophisticated Tracking Systems.”

Cornyn, the Texas senator, told reporters on Saturday that Trump “didn’t tell us what he was going to do.” While campaigning ahead of the state’s primaries on Tuesday, Cornyn said Trump “posted the question of whether Iran must be stopped by whatever necessary action that he might choose to take.”

12:21 p.m. EST: On Truth Social, Trump says U.S. forces have “destroyed and sunk 9 Iranian Naval Ships," would be “going after the rest" and “largely destroyed their Naval Headquarters.”

4:06 p.m. EST: In a video message, the Republican president said the U.S. military and its partners hit hundreds of targets in Iran, including Revolutionary Guard facilities and Iranian air defense systems “all in a matter of literally minutes.”

Trump says he expected the strikes would continue until “all of our objectives are achieved.” He does not spell out what those objectives are.

Also Sunday, Trump administration officials tell congressional staff in private briefings that U.S. intelligence did not suggest Iran was preparing to launch a preemptive strike against the U.S., according to three people familiar with the briefings.

The administration officials instead acknowledged that there was a more general threat in the region from Iran’s missiles and proxy forces, two of the people said.

A senior White House official also says Sunday that Iran’s “new potential leadership” has suggested it is open to talks with the United States.

8 a.m. EST: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said at a Pentagon briefing that the U.S. is not engaged in a nation-building effort in Iran and that ongoing strikes won't be the prelude to a long, sustained conflict.

“This is not Iraq. This is not endless,” he said. “This is not a so-called regime change war, but the regime sure did change, and the world is better off for it.”

Also Monday, Trump said at an unrelated event at the White House that he expects the operation in Iran to last four to five weeks but that “we have the capability to go far longer than that.”

In a brief phone interview with the New York Post, the president said he wasn’t ruling out U.S. forces in Iran if “they were necessary.”

“I don’t have the yips with respect to boots on the ground. Like, every president says, ‘There will be no boots on the ground.’ I don’t say it,” Trump told the newspaper.

Other nations in the region took a defensive posture. The United Arab Emirates said it intercepted nine ballistic and six cruise missiles and 148 drones Monday. Qatar said its air force shot down 2 Iranian warplanes.

During market trading, the price of oil jumped as tanker disruptions near the Strait of Hormuz raised fears about supply shortages from the Persian Gulf.

Global markets also were rattled by the strikes, with U.S. futures following markets in Europe and Asia lower.

Associated Press writers Seung Min Kim in Washington and Josef Federman in Jerusalem contributed this report. Meg Kinnard reported from Charleston, South Carolina, and can be reached at http://x.com/MegKinnardAP

Debris is seen in a room of the Gandhi Hospital, which was damaged when a strike hit a state TV communications tower and nearby buildings across the street, during the ongoing joint U.S.-Israeli military campaign in Tehran, Iran, Monday, March 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

Plumes of smoke from two simultaneous strikes rise over Tehran, Iran, Monday, March 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohsen Ganji)

President Donald Trump speaks to reporters before departing on Marine One from the South Lawn of the White House, Friday, Feb. 27, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

President Donald Trump boards Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews, Md., Friday, Feb. 27, 2026, en route Corpus Christi, Texas. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)