Korea to set tone for Asias green growth as WCC host

By Yun Suh-young

Korea is expected to provide a fresh catalyst for other Asian countries to boost green growth as it will host an international conference on the environment next year, a senior official from an international environmental watchdog said.

Her remark comes amid Korea’s aggressive push to pursue a green agenda. The government unveiled its “low carbon, green growth” vision in 2008 and opened the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) in Seoul last year.

“If Korea succeeds in the shift to a green economy, it would be much more meaningful to countries like India and China,” said Aban Marker Kabraji, the Asia Regional Director for International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

The IUCN is the largest environmental organization in the world acting much like the U.N., except that its members discuss environmental issues from all sectors rather than a wider range of issues like the U.N. does.

The IUCN will open the World Conservation Congress (WCC), the largest global conference discussing environmental issues, on Jeju Island next year. Asian members will propose issues that they wish to discuss at next year’s conference at the Regional Conservation Forum (RCF) which will be held in Incheon this September prior to the WCC.

“I think Asian members will like to talk about disaster risk reduction given the natural disasters that have occurred in the region,” Kabraji said. “Climate change is also one of the biggest themes that will be discussed.”

Could natural disasters be seen as a result of climate change?

“I think you could,” the regional director said. “There is a very strong body of thinking that tsunamis, storms, cyclones and major changes in terms of rainfall patterns are directly linked to climate change.”

The emission of carbon gases causes a greenhouse effect which warms the Earth’s atmosphere. Korea is pioneering efforts to reduce carbon emissions, one of the biggest causes of climate change.

In an effort to combat global warming, the government had launched the East Asia Climate Partnership in 2008. The Korean government also announced plans to reduce carbon emissions by 30 percent by the year 2020.

Next year, South Korea will be the fifth nation to be hosting the global environmental conference, a victory over its Mexican rival which was also competing.

“Korea’s hosting of the event is significant in the sense that it is positioning itself in the world as having a particular agenda in terms of global significance,” said Kabraji.

“Korea seems to be strongly accepting the need to change the way growth is defined in the world,” she said. “It seems to be moving away from the old paradigm of growth at any cost.”

Korea seems to be on its own at the moment on its drive toward green growth, a significant change from the past when Korea relied on Japan as its role model.

“The Japanese model has not been looking so successful over the last ten years,” Kabraji said. “Korea is now in a fairly mature state in terms of its own economy and in terms of its position in the world.”

Europe and America are increasingly looking out to Asia in many ways, the regional director said. Even European countries which have begun the shift to a green economy 40 to 50 years ago aren’t necessarily there yet, she noted.

“If Korea succeeds in the shift to a green economy, it will be the first in Asia to do so because no other country has so visibly positioned itself.”