Often found at theaters and museums, Kwon Mee-yoo has covered a wide range of cultural fields from K-pop and dramas to theater and fine art for over a decade. Now as K-Culture Desk editor, she tries to connect Korean culture with global readers through fresh perspectives.
An ambassador who doesn't have a car
Ambassador of Nicaragua to Korea Rodrigo Coronel Kinloch visits Namdaemun Market in central Seoul, March 24. The Central American country's embassy is located right across the street from the market and the ambassador, who does not have a car, knows the market like the palm of his hand. Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk
By Kwon Mee-yoo
Nicaraguan ambassador tackles climate change in practical ways
By Kwon Mee-yoo
Ambassador of Nicaragua to Korea Rodrigo Coronel Kinloch is a man of action.
Instead of making flamboyant pledges to fight climate change, he makes small changes in his daily life. The most notable being that he does not own a car, which sets him apart from the typical image of an ambassador who is chauffeured in large sedans bearing small flags of a country.
"I don't have a car, either personal or official. I have been offered a car but I don't want it," Coronel said during an interview with The Korea Times at the country's embassy, March 24.
"Many people say, 'It must be very inconvenient,' and I say 'Yes, it is extremely inconvenient. But you know what is more inconvenient? Climate change.' So if we as people are not willing to take actions that are inconvenient, there's no possibility of tackling climate change. So that's why I walk wherever I can, take a taxi, take the bus and take the metro.”
The Embassy of Nicaragua is situated near Sungnyemun in downtown Seoul, which provides Coronel a better environment to walk around the city and visit other embassies or events.
"Because I don't have a car, it does not limit the amount of things that I go to. I think that's one of the main concerns ― can you do your job without having a car? And I will tell you, I am a very active ambassador and I go to many different events and meetings. At the beginning, I was thinking maybe there has to be a car, but I have realized that you surely don't need one,” he said.
"I live very close, about 15 minutes walking (distance). So I walk from home to here. And then if there is an event that is within a 25 to 30 minute walk, I will walk to the event unless it is ridiculously cold or raining. To events where I am not able to walk or I am in a suit and I cannot walk so much, I will either take a bus if it is possible to get there easily or my main transportation would be Kakao Taxi (a Korean transportation service application).”
The ambassador noted that not having a car is his personal way to put climate change actions into practice.
"I am doing this as a personal decision, not to put others into chains. I am not advocating not having a car, but rather not having one gets people talking about the actions you can take for climate change. You can have your car but also use public transportation or just recycle properly," he said.
"What I'm trying to say is that without inconvenient actions and personal responsibility towards climate change, we cannot solve the issue. It is that simple and straightforward."
Walking instead of driving is not the ambassador's only method of fighting global warming. At the Nicaraguan Embassy in central Seoul, Coronel works with an efficient laptop instead of a bulky desktop and shares a printer with other embassy staff, which means he has to come out of his office to retrieve printouts every time he prints something. And there are no single-use plastic products in the embassy either.
"I realize that without personal commitment and personal responsibility on taking actions towards tackling climate change, I cannot be an advocate. It is very easy to say I am proactive for climate change and say all these beautiful speeches, but if I myself don't take these actions, then I am being dishonest in fixing climate change,” he said.
"One of the things that I want to make sure that happens here is that we have responsible actions. To tackle climate change is to do actions rather than words or pledges. The actions have to begin with us.”
The ambassador clarified that the decision not to have a car is not his government's policy but his personal choice, while it is related to his country's responses to the global threat.
"Nicaragua only produces 0.02 percent of global emissions. Yet we are in the top 10 most vulnerable countries for climate change. Just last year, we got hit by two Category Five hurricanes within a week and we have seen flooding and droughts. So people in Nicaragua have felt, in their own skin, what it's like to lose their livelihoods and close family members because of climate change," the ambassador said.
"Thirty percent of Nicaragua is protected area. Yet we are a developing country, so we could use the land to be exploited and make more money. But we realized that this is not an issue of Nicaragua, but an issue of the world. So we cannot think ourselves as just Nicaraguans, but citizens of the planet. These are very big investments (and) very bold actions for a small country that could be exploiting those resources. But because we have felt the pain of climate change in our own skin, we have taken the decision not to.”
According to the ambassador, approximately 77 percent of Nicaragua's total energy mix comes from renewables including wind, solar, biofuels, geothermal and hydro power.
“The biggest (source) is the wind turbines. We are very blessed to have very extended land where we don't have a lot of concentration of population ― we are just 6.2 million people in a land almost as big as Korea ― so we have a very good system of wind. When you visit Nicaragua, especially in the lake and near the sea, you will see a lot of wind turbines. We have also invested very heavily in solar and we are called the land of lakes and volcanoes, so thermal energy is becoming very important," the ambassador explained.
"We're getting a lot into the hydrogen and EV (electric vehicles), so we are very happy to have partners like Korea, because Korea is in the top of the EV, especially batteries. You might have all the energy you want, but the saving of the energy is very important. So we are very happy to have these partners in Korea that are developing the new ways of batteries."
Ambassador of Nicaragua to Korea Rodrigo Coronel Kinloch introduces the wall of similarities, a project finding similarities between Nicaragua and Korea at the Embassy of Nicaragua in central Seoul, March 24. Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk
Wall of similarities
Ambassador Coronel has an open door policy at the Nicaraguan Embassy in Seoul and adorned the embassy space with a variety of folk items both from Nicaragua and Korea. He also devoted a wall to showcase a series of similarities between Nicaragua and Korea from food and scenery to folk games and craftworks.
"When you think about why things like climate change are not being tackled properly, I believe that maybe it's due to a lack of empathy. The issue with empathy is that it cannot be developed if we don't feel close to the other. This is human nature as we usually gravitate towards people that we share similar values with. So many issues happen because we perceive other cultures or other people as faraway countries with completely different cultures and people that we cannot relate to," he explained.
"That is the same with issues like climate change. If you don't feel them and you don't have empathy for the people that are suffering from climate change, it is very easy to dismiss them and don't do anything about it. So the wall of similarities became an idea ― first a personal project and then a wider mission."
One example is the similarity between “melcocha,” a handmade candy from Latin America, and "yeot" (Korean hard taffy).
"I went to Busan near the temple in the sea and there was an open market. And there was this lady selling this candy and she was breaking it into little pieces. I said it looks like melcocha and 'Please give me one of each.' Then I realized these taste exactly the same as melcocha and then I talked to the lady through English, Korean and hand gestures to find out that they are made exactly the same. It was a beautiful discovery that not only the candy tastes the same, but also the way how it is made is exactly the same. That was one of my happiest discoveries in Korea.”
The ambassador hopes to expand the items throughout his term, finding more similarities between the two countries.
"I'm a very big fan of Korean culture. So I want to make sure that Koreans can realize how similar we are. So I'm putting a lot of effort into (the wall of similarities)."