GreeN Growth - Asia-Pacific Business and Technology Report

coverstorycoverstoryincluded one from Masayoshi Son, Chairmanand CEO of Japan’s Softbank, who saidthat Japan needed to reduce its nuclear energydependence. He apologized to Japan’sneighbors by saying, “We feel very sorry toour neighbor countries like Korea, China,Taiwan and so on, and also for polluting theair around the world. This is a big change.And I feel so sorry about that, so we have tomake some change to the Japanese environmentdependence on the [nuclear] energy.”There was some good news as well fromSuntech’s CEO Zhengrong Shi. Suntech isthe world’s biggest maker of solar panels,and its CEO noted that the cost of electricityhad gone down in the past year. “Today,I’m very pleased to see that we, Suntech,together with all our global PV [photovoltaics]companies have driven down the costof solar electricity by more than 70 percentsince 2001. It is now as low as 50 US centsper kilowatt hour in many regions evenwithout government subsidies,” he said.The summit was a significant step for Koreaas a whole and the Lee administrationespecially, since Lee Myung-bak has beenpushing for the promotion of green growthas one of his major policies for his entire administration.Korea is trying to place itselfat the forefront of the global green technologypush with its Global Green Growth Instituteand the government-led research anddevelopment of wind power, solar power,and fuel cells. This summit laid a strongerfoundation for a good next step in that direction.In fact, Ursula Schaefer-Preuss, VicePresident of the Asian Development Bank,praised Korea on the first day, saying thatits road-map for green growth was a rolemodel for other countries. She expressedhopes that countries would cooperate onnew environmentally-friendly policies similarto Korea’s.The Global Green Growth Institute(GGGI) was heavily stressed during the summit.The Chairman of the institute, Dr. HanSeung-soo, also gave one of several openingspeeches. The GGGI is the natural progressionof the activities at the summit, and bycooperating with it, the concerned countriescan further coordinate their agreementsreached at the gathering. The GGGI,even after just one year of operation, alreadyhas an impressive list of accomplishments.The institute has opened two branchoffices, one in Copenhagen and the otherin Masdar City in Abu Dhabi. The GGGI hasalso been active in Kazakhstan by attendingthe EBRD’s 20th annual meeting in Astanaand giving a presentation entitled “BuildingKazakhstan’s Green Growth Pathway” onMay 19 (the EBRD is a major multilateral developmentbank). The GGGI agreed to helpimplement Kazakhstan’s National GreenGrowth Plan in the upcoming months. Itsstrategic partnership with EBRD will aid inthe efforts of both organizations to promotegreen further around the world.The GGGI also signed a memorandum ofunderstanding with the World EconomicForum on January 30 of this year, aimingIn Korea there is a government-led push for greentechnology development. How does that match upwith the private sector in Korea? Are there significantprivate sector initiatives for green growth?Green growth is a new growth paradigm different from traditionalquantity-oriented fossil fuel-dependent growth. So it has tobe initiated directly by the government. On the growth paradigmshift, the government has to be a leader while the private sector isa follower. Once the government sets the strategy in motion, thenthere will be incentives for the private sector to join in. That is whatwill happen in Korea.For example, when the green growth policy was initiated in January2009, green technology was one of the most important componentsof its policy package. We then identified 17 sectors as newengines of growth under 3 different categories. These included sixprojects under the category of green technology industries such asrenewable energies, low-carbon energies, advanced water management,LED applications, green transportation systems and greencities; and another six industries in the category of fusion technologyincluding IT fusion with manufacturing technology such asrobot applications, new materials and nano fusion, biomedicineand high value-added food industries. Finally, an additional fiveprojects make up high value-added job-creating industries suchas globalized healthcare and education services, green financing,content and software development, medical services, and so on.The government is to allocate 2 percent of the GDP as R&D ongreen technology and green growth-related areas. Through thiswe are trying to broaden the infrastructure for the private sectorso that it can join in when the time comes.How does Korea stand up on the global stage comparedto other countries that are also focusing ongreen growth technology?As you know, Korea is the first country that implemented thegreen growth strategy. Green growth is Korea’s response to thechallenge of climate change. Most countries are trying to respondto climate change, but unless you change the system, you will notbe able to solve the fundamental problems of climate change. Climatechange is one of the best examples of externality on a globalscale and what we are trying to do in Korea is to internalize it byendogenizing climate change as a domestic variable in our policyplanningequation.Korea is the first country that has been actually implementinggreen growth policies since January 2009. We have several institutionalframeworks initiated. The Presidential Committee on GreenGrowth was established and the National Assembly passed a FrameworkAct on Low Carbon Green Growth, the first of its kind in theworld. We are in the third year of implementing the first Five YearGreen Growth Plan (2009-13). There is no other country that is goingthrough this kind of system change at this moment.Two years ago when I was the Prime Minister and served as Chairof the 2009 OECD Ministerial Council Meeting, I was able to garnerunanimous support of the participating ministers to adopt theDeclaration on Green Growth. Based on that resolution, the OECDSecretariat began to study green growth, producing this year a veryimportant document entitled Towards Green Growth.You are very invested in global sustainability, beinginvolved with many different international initiatives.What are your worries about the future of theworld, and your hopes, as far as green issues areconcerned?I am currently on the UN Secretary-General’s High-Panel onGlobal Sustainability and serve as Co-Chair of the Working Group IIdealing with paradigm shifts.I am worried that the year 2012 is the final year of the KyotoProtocol and there is no prospect of any new agreement that willreplace it. For the success of the Conference of the Parties of theUNFCCC, many world leaders met at COP 13 in Bali, COP 15 in Copenhagen,and COP 16 in Cancun but no concrete agreement wasmade. I am worried that unless we find a new modality to tacklethe challenge of climate change, the future of the world cannot butbe very gloomy.10 | A-P BUSINESS & TECHNOLOGY REPORT A-P BUSINESS & TECHNOLOGY REPORT | 11