Greenpeace, an international environmental group, will be under police investigation for attaching a sticker to a large billboard set up in front of Hyundai Motor's office building in Seoul, calling for an end to the production of internal combustion engines.
Seoul's Seocho Police Station said on Sept. 15 that it has received a report from Hyundai Motor that a large billboard has been damaged and is investigating the case on charges of property damage.
According to police, the Greenpeace activists climbed up a ladder car onto the Hyundai Motor's large billboard across the Square of Meeting on the Gyeongbu Expressway in Seocho-gu, Seoul, at around 10 a.m. on the day and put the words "No more internal combustion engines" on a black sticker. They also held a hand banner reading, "The collapsing climate is the crisis brought by the auto industry."
Greenpeace said on its website that it part of the Greenpeace's global protest against the auto industry to oust internal combustion engines, adding that the greenhouse gas emissions of vehicles produced and sold by Hyundai-Kia in 2018 amounted to 401 million tons. It then criticized that Hyundai Motor ranked fifth in the world, following Volkswagen, Renault-Nissan, Toyota and General Motors.
"As governments are tightening environmental regulations, car manufacturers will end up going out of business if they don't abandon internal combustion engine vehicles," said an official from Greenpeace's Seoul office. "To survive, Hyundai-Kia, the nation's No. 1 carmaker, must announce the schedule of stoppage of internal combustion engine production and sales and its plan to convert electric vehicles."
Meanwhile, the police plan to investigate Greenpeace on charges of property damage as it received a report from Hyundai Motor.