Seoul to bring G20 leaders’ attention to green growth

The global economic crisis triggered by the U.S. subprime mortgage meltdown has steered the global economy in a new direction, forcing many countries around the world to follow a new expansion paradigm, ``green growth.''

By Kim Jae-kyoung

The global economic crisis triggered by the U.S. subprime mortgage meltdown has steered the global economy in a new direction, forcing many countries around the world to follow a new expansion paradigm, ``green growth.''

For sustainable and balanced development, governments in major countries have come up with green initiatives to get the upper hand in the new area, which they believe will determine the future of their economies.

However, there has been slow progress in reaching a global consensus on the issue due to different perspectives between developed and emerging countries. Against this backdrop, Korea is seeking to take an initiative in coming up with workable solutions at the G20 Seoul Summit by tabling the agenda to the business summit table.

In an interview with The Korea Times, Young Soo-gil, chairman of the Presidential Committee on Green Growth, said, “The agenda for the summit will be crowded with other issues of pressing priorities to allow much discussion on green growth. The Korean G20 Summit Preparatory Committee is aiming for mainstream advancement on the agenda for the summit, and so ‘development’ will be a prominent theme.”

“This will hopefully allow President Lee Myung-bak to bring the attention of the G20 Leaders to the value of the theme of green growth as a catalyst for global cooperation in many development dimensions,” he added.

He pointed out that progress on global emissions reduction is being hampered by particular difficulties the developing countries face in trying to contain and cut down their own greenhouse gas emissions.

“These difficulties arise from their need to maintain high economic growth in order to fight poverty and improve their living standards. Difficulties also arise from their lack of appropriate capacities to implement projects for mitigation of, and adaptation to, climate change,” he said.

Young said that Korea is seeking to take a lead in the global green growth drive by sharing its knowledge and experience.

“Korea would like to help those developing countries harmonize their growth aspirations with the environmental ones by sharing its green growth tool kits and experiences, as well as by working together to undertake specific mitigation and adaptation projects in cost-effective and growth-friendly ways in individual countries,” he said.

“Korea is also willing to take leadership in the international efforts to help build physical infrastructures in the developing countries in climate-change resilient ways. For these purposes, Korea is to make green growth partnership a leading component of its increased ODA (Official Development Assistance) commitment as a new member of the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC),” he added.

As part of this effort, Korea has launched the East Asia Climate Partnership (EACP). Most significantly, on July 16 of this year, the Korean government launched a Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) based in Seoul.

“Korea hopes to develop GGGI into an international treaty-based institution by 2012 with support from other countries which share belief in the value of green growth as well as of sharing insights, know-how and experiences on it,” he said.

“The Green Growth Committee also hopes that Korea’s green growth inspirations will play a facilitating role in making a breakthrough over the issue of how to reconcile economic, social and environmental development objectives at the Rio plus 20 Conference on Sustainable Development to be held in 2012,” he added.

The following is the transcript of the interview.

Q: Could you tell us about Korea’s efforts on green growth over the past years?

A: For the last two years since President Lee proclaimed green growth as Korea’s vision in his commemorative speech on the 63rd anniversary of the nation’s liberation from the Japanese occupation in August 2008, the government has diligently undertaken a series of preparatory measures to create many important framework conditions necessary for pursuing green growth.

A number of major blueprints have been introduced including the National Strategy for Green Growth (for the next 60 years) and the Five-Year Plan for Green Growth. The Presidential Committee on Green Growth which consists of leading civilian experts and the relevant ministers was established.

In order to implement the five-year plan, the committee has introduced more than 20 major action plans which purport to reframe Korea’s industrial activities and people’s lives. Those include a declaration in November last year of the nation’s greenhouse emissions reduction target for the year 2020 of minus 30 percent relative to the business-as-usual (BAU) scenario.

All of these measures have helped to popularize the word “green.” Many civic groups and local forums have sprung up to advocate and study a green Korea and green towns. Korean households are now increasingly trying to make their life-styles green. Many businesses, and especially all big businesses, have declared “green management,” which is now a new and important component of their value propositions for the consumers and the society.

Many small and medium businesses, especially venture businesses, are seriously looking for opportunities in green innovation. All these green developments were unimaginable only two years ago. Inevitably, there could be some “green washing” here and there. But I think that even this is a welcome sign of Korea’s turning green.

I believe that Korea has entered into what the German environmentalists call “ecological modernization” ― the final phase of modernization that advanced countries should find themselves in. The last two years have thus been a preparatory period for pursuing Korea’s green growth. Much of the work done has served to create the framework conditions necessary for the launching of green growth in earnest.

Q: You are heading the 2nd-phase Presidential Committee for Green Growth. Could you tell us on which part the 2nd phase committee will focus to boost green growth?

The committee will focus on seven priority tasks for the next year or so for this purpose. To name just a few of them, one is to prepare to implement the nation’s greenhouse emissions reduction target by allocating it to individual sectors (like industry, transportation and construction) and specific entities while also devising the enforcement of their implementation.

This task includes work to prepare for the introduction of an emission rights trading system. Another task is to launch the work to facilitate the development and commercialization of 10 “core” green technologies in the near term.

Other tasks include work to facilitate the improvement of energy efficiency and deployment of new and renewable energies in Korea’s leading industries such as steel, shipbuilding, cement, automobiles and semi-conductors. Another priority task is to rationalize the energy pricing while introducing environment-friendly tax reform.

Q: Korea expects the Seoul Summit to help improve the undervalued image of Korea? Do you think that the so-called Korea discount will disappear after the international gathering? What kind of steps should Korea take to upgrade its global brand?

A: Korea’s hosting of the G20 Summit will certainly help improve Korea’s images and brands abroad by informing the world that Korea has joined a ‘steering group for global economic management’, especially if Korea as the chair country successfully secures a meaningful outcome at the Summit.

But let’s face it ― images and brands are not formed or reformed overnight, and certainly not by a single event, and Korea’s image and brand abroad shape up over time as the international community observes and witnesses how Koreans conduct their ordinary business life.

What is really important from this perspective is how much of an impact the summit will have on the people’s and the politicians’ international mindedness at home. Are Korea’s image and brand undervalued? I will agree that there is room for improving those images and brands but I also think that the key to this objective should be in “improving” the way we, Koreans, behave at home, rather than in international public-relations campaigns.

So, the challenges in nation branding are more fundamental than the political leaders seem to recognize. If we think that there is a Korea discount, we should identity what in our behavior and society contributes to it and try to rectify that.

This calls for participatory actions by all those Korean people and institutions who and which consider themselves “patriotic” to do this. Political leaders, religious leaders, and media leaders, in particular, would prove themselves to be true leaders if they take the lead in doing this.

The necessary changes include those to bring new, creative and constructive value to the world. I think that a green Korea and its new green growth strategy as a solution to climate change, need for economic expansion and social improvement will help enhance Korea’s brand greatly by bringing such value to the world.

Q: Following the global financial crisis, the gravity of economic and political power is slowly shifting from the West (the U.S.) to the East (China). How should Korea position itself to emerge as a winner in the post-crisis world?

A: Korea can emerge from the current global crisis as an economically and politically enhanced country by taking advantage of the crisis in order to rebalance and restructure its economy, including its new green growth strategy.

The county can also seize the new opportunities offered by the launching of the G20 summit process in order to help broker new international cooperation on global developmental problems between the West and the East as a bridge country.

In addition, in order to create a critical mass of game-changers, it can practice President Lee Myung-bak’s “Me First” approach to help solve global problems by proposing to take cooperative action voluntarily and unilaterally, encouraging other countries to do the same. President Lee’s announcement of Korea’s ambitious and unilateral emissions reduction target in Copenhagen in December last year signified this approach.

Who is Young Soo-gil?

Since March 2006, Young Soo-gil has been president of the National Strategy Institute (NSI), an independent think tank on economic reform and national governance. On July 13, 2010, he was appointed by President Lee Myung-bak as chairman of the Presidential Committee on Green Growth, responsible for formulating Korea’s green growth policy and consists of 36 senior civilian experts and NGO leaders and 14 ministers.

He concurrently serves on the Advisory Joint Committee for Financial Advancement for the Financial Services Commission. He is also chairman of the Korea National Committee for Pacific Economic Cooperation (KOPEC), chairman of the Green Investment Forum Korea, and vice-chair of the Seoul Financial Forum.

From 1978 to 1998, Young served as president of the Korea Transport Institute and the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy (KIEP). He also served as Korea’s Ambassador to the OECD in Paris.

He obtained his B.Sc. in Chemical Engineering at Seoul National University, and earned his Ph.D. in economics from the Johns Hopkins University in the U.S.