Green growth is second industrial revolution

Former prime minister and UNGA chief leads international policy initiative in low-carbon economy

By Cho Jin-seo

If you are a high-profile politician and you want to brand yourself as a green campaigner, you have two role models to choose from.

First is the Al Gore way — make a documentary film on climate change, win an Oscar and a Nobel Peace Prize, and continue to live in a mansion that uses 20 times as much electricity as the average U.S. household.

Otherwise, you may opt for the less fashionable and more time-consuming way of Han Seung-soo, the former prime minister of South Korea and president of the United Nations General Assembly.

Now as the chairman of the board at the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI), a budding public-private international partnership, Han uses his knowledge, experience and political clout to persuade governments of the world to join his “green growth” initiative. No documentary film is involved here and pomposity is not welcomed.

“It will take a long time. But what’s important is that we took the first steps in the right direction,” he said at his office at the GGGI headquarters.

In the office that occupies three floors of a central Seoul building, tables and cubicles are made of bare wooden panels. This fills the air with the aroma of pine trees. GGGI is a young organization with a young staff (most of them are under 40) and somehow it feels younger with the presence of Han, now 74.

His role as “board chair” is to make strategic decisions in encouraging governments, private institutions and academics of the world to move toward economic and industrial policies that emit less greenhouse gas.

“Countries with advanced economies can easily emulate others’ green-growth policies because they have the capacity. Therefore, the main role of GGGI is to share ideas for green growth with developing economies,” he says.

Green growth cannot be achieved if the national and global economy is left to the free market, he says. The economist-turned-politician strongly advocates the need for a government role such as providing economic incentives and disincentives, subsidies, regulations and other macroeconomic planning tools, especially in nations with developing economy.

“Green growth is a revolutionary paradigm shift and a revolution does not take place in the market. You need the government to lead the green revolution,” he said.

This is not just empty talk. Endorsed by the governments of Korea, Japan, Australia, Denmark and United Arab Emirates, the GGGI is also supported by a number of international organizations such as the Asian Development Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, World Economic Forum as well as the U.N.

Its board of directors includes well-known names such as Nicholas Stern, who leads studies on climate change at the London School of Economics; Thomas Heller of Stanford University; Montek Ahluwalia, deputy chairman of Indian Planning Commission; Bharrat Jagdeo, president of Guyana; Jeffrey Sachs, professor of Columbia University; and ministers from Brazil, South Africa, Denmark and Kazakhstan. Also joining the board last week was Ahmed Al Jaber, managing director and CEO of Masdar, the renewable energy project in Abu Dhabi; Jeffrey Sachs, professor of Columbia University; and Izabella Teixeira, Environment minister from Brazil.

This kind of powerful global network makes GGGI more influential than any other think tank in the field of climate change policies. In fact, Han prefers calling it “a think-and-action tank.”

Last year, it helped the governments of Brazil, Ethiopia and Indonesia implement such policies. This year the work is expanding to Kazakhstan, Cambodia and the United Arab Emirates. It also opened the first regional office in Copenhagen last month, and is preparing for the opening of an Abu Dhabi office next month.

Celebrating the GGGI’s first anniversary last week, Han said that its initiative is gaining momentum and efforts are slowly bearing fruit.

“Traditional, quantity-oriented growth models cannot solve the problem of climate change,” he said.

“Since the First Industrial Revolution, the world has grown by the means of electricity, steam and mass production — physical power. This will change. From now on, mental capacity will be the driving force of the Second Industrial Revolution.”

Perfect resume

Climate change is a slow phenomenon. Han himself made a joke, saying that everyone in the room will be dead before the average temperature of the Earth reaches catastrophic levels at the end of this century.

As people do not feel an urgent need for a change, they tend to maintain the status quo. This is exactly why the world needs responsible politicians who can think in the long term and produce results in the short term. Fancy promotion tricks may help but are not sufficient for success.

Han’s knowledge, experience and political clout fit well into such a role. Until the mid-1980s, Han was a respected academic (he taught economics at Cambridge and Seoul National University and wrote columns in The Korea Times in the 1980s). Then he turned to politics (he was a member of the National Assembly for 12 years) and became a finance minister, a diplomat (he was minister of foreign affairs and ambassador to Washington), and a top global bureaucrat at the U.N. before serving as prime minister between 2008 and 2009.

When he was president of the United Nations General Assembly between 2001 and 2002, his chief of staff was Ban Ki-moon, who is now Secretary General of the U.N. In 2007, Ban appointed his former boss Han to the position of Special Envoy on Climate Change along with Gro Harlem Brundtland of Norway, who propagated the concept of “sustainable development,” and Ricardo Lagos, a former President of Chile.

Even before this appointment, Han had been deeply involved in climate change issues. When he was presiding over UNGA in 2002, he also chaired the World Summit of Sustainable Growth in Johannesburg.

Mixing this responsibility with his long experience as an economist and economic policymaker of the fast-growing economy of Korea, Han was able to create his vision of environmentalism within a framework of economic growth policy.

Green Growth Index

In his view, the most crucial factor in green growth is how well renewable energy such as wind and solar power fares. In this regard, he does not agree with the views of some analysts in the financial market who think these sectors are not profitable.

But at the same time, this contrasting view explains why Han believes the governments must help these sectors become profitable using various means outside the free market boundary.

“In the end, the politicians hold the key. It is very important that politicians have a deep understanding of the green growth concept so they can build consensus regardless of party lines,” said Han, who has served in high-ranking positions under five different presidents.

What makes it even more difficult to win political support is that it is hard to measure green growth. The GDP is the most widely-used indicator of the traditional “grey” growth model.

Many institutions have tried to create a qualitative index such as “gross domestic happiness.” The OECD also has a well-designed website that shows various measurements of the quality of living. But none of them has won global appeal, yet. So, creating a credible and easy-to-use “green growth index” is a major mission of GGGI, Han says.

‘Don’t give up on nuclear, yet’

On the prospect of the nuclear power generation after the recent earthquake in Japan, the GGGI chairman said that it is likely to remain as an inevitable alternative until renewable energy sources become cheap and plentiful enough to replace fossil fuels.

“At this particular time, it is difficult for even the bravest people to speak out in favor of nuclear power,” he said, referring to the damage to four reactors in Fukushima, eastern Japan. “But if we pursue clean energy, we need to accept nuclear power as a reality until we have better options readily available. Until then, the main issue is how to make nuclear energy safer.”

Han and GGGI had a pleasant first year with their influence growing. But the real challenge will begin next year. President Lee Myung-bak has strongly supported the organization but it is unclear that his successor, whoever he or she might be, will be equally supportive to GGGI after Lee leaves office in Feb. 2013.

Moreover, it does not help that the Korean government is lagging behind developed countries in terms of green energy policies. Renewable energy sources such as wind, solar and thermal power only account for 1 percent of electricity generation here; Subsidies on the purchase of electric cars have been delayed in favor of national carmakers such as Hyundai, which are slow in this field.

Like Al Gore of “An Inconvenient Truth” was criticized for his excessive use of energy at his Tennessee home, GGGI and chairman Han may face the same criticism if Korea continues its reluctant stance on renewable energy. Their real challenge begins now, on their home turf.