GREEN GROWTH: FROM RELIGION TO REALITY - Sustainia

Chapter 61 IntroductionToday, “green” tops the agenda for the Korean government.The Lee Myung-bak administration has set impressivegoals: according to its plans, Korea will reducecarbon emissions, improve energy security, and createnew economic growth engines, and improve the qualityof people’s lives based on green technologies. Meetingthese goals will also improve Korea’s energy security,shielding it from fuel price and supply shocks that couldhurt its economy.The concept of green growth, and with it the developmentof renewable and/or fossil-free energy, is naturallyattractive to a country that imports 96.7% of its energyfrom overseas and has the fastest growing emissionsamong OECD countries. The need to create a new enginefor economic growth is also an important element of theKorean government’s exceptional commitment to greengrowth. The Korean government sees the push for greengrowth as an opportunity to open a new era of nationaldevelopment that not only incorporates sustainabilityinto the conventional economic growth framework byreducing carbon emissions, but also further improvescorporate competitiveness by greening and upgradingthe existing industries and nurturing green industries."This strategy is envisioned as an economic and socialparadigm shift that revolutionizes the daily livesof Koreans, by reorganizing energy systems, industry,and urban management systems including buildingsand transportation"The potential for a transformed society in which economicgrowth comes from green energy could tie togetherkey industrial players in Korea with other societaland international interests. President Lee Myung-bak’sstrategy effectively creates a partnership between theadvocates of “green” and the advocates of “growth,” inorder to promote more balanced and sustainable futuregrowth. This strategy is envisioned as an economic andsocial paradigm shift that revolutionizes the daily lives ofKoreans, by reorganizing energy systems, industry, andurban management systems including buildings andtransportation.This definition of green growth goes beyond what wasproposed in the green literature review (Green GrowthLeaders 2011c) undertaken as a companion piece forour country studies. That review discusses three possibledefinitions of green growth, all of which are used in contemporarydebates:1) Growth compatible with emissions reductions, suchas growth that continues while efficiency measures areused to decouple growth from emissions.2) Growth driven by emissions reductions, which comesin two flavors:a. Jobs created by green growth policyb. GDP growth created by green growth policyThe Korean green growth vision encompasses all ofthese benefits and goes a step beyond, toward a multileveltransformation that, if realized, will be more than asimple growth strategy and affect many more aspects ofKorean lives than just the economy.1 A full exploration ofthe Korean vision for green growth and the multi-leveltransformation it entails is therefore beyond the scope ofthis report. Here, we focus on what we see as some of thekey parts of the economic story. We seek to understandthe goals Korea has set for itself in the spheres of energyand economy, what basic drivers underlie these goals,and what obstacles Korea may face in achieving them.This report will first examine the overall green growthobjectives Korea has chosen. Major green growth projectsinclude developing green energy, building a smart grid,promoting smart work2, and laying rapid-transit rails.While all of these objectives are aimed at constructinga green infrastructure, this report focuses particularlyon green energy (energy security, generation, and efficiency),as well as green industry and energy markets.Specific plans regarding each green growth objective, aswell as the structural challenges that deter the implementationof these plans, will be discussed.2 Korean green growth objectivesIn 2008, Korea faced two problems. First, concernedvoices had been raised about whether Korea, as a nonannexcountry to the Kyoto Protocol, was ready to start1 In this respect the Korean visionreaches intentionally for a transformationthat is conceptuallysimilar to that which has occurredde facto in the Danish economy.See our Danish Country CaseAnalysis report (Green GrowthLeaders 2011b) for further discussion.However, Korea’s specificgoals, specific tools chosen, andparticular obstacles differ becauseKorea begins from the basis of adifferent political configurationand resource base than Denmark.One example is the way in whichDenmark’s copious wind resourcesand particular political configurationcombine to create a criticalmass of popular and businesssupport for commitment to windenergy; Korea, with a differentset of resources and a differentpolitical economic configuration,arrives at its visions for transformationin a different way and isaimed in different directions. Bothrepresent potentially viable experimentsin green growth.2 “Smart Work” is a term coinedby the Korean government that issynonymous to telecommuting,in other words, allowing for alltypes of working conditions thatare not confined by time or placeby employing Information andCommunication Technologies.68