A greener North Korea

By John Burton

Last month, the Seoul-based U.N. Green Climate Fund (GCF) agreed to provide North Korea with $752,090 in funding to help the country deal with climate change.

With North Korea suffering from declining agricultural production as a result of climate change, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has been appointed to help lead the initiative in cooperation with North Korea's Ministry of Land and Environment Protection.

In making its request for the funds, Pyongyang acknowledged that it lacked coordination among government agencies in formulating national climate change adaptation plans. The program is meant to improve expertise in North Korea to "better understand climate change" and "options for low emission" strategies by educating officials in several ministries, including agriculture, power and fisheries.

North Korea realizes that it is facing a climate change problem, exemplified by rising temperatures, changes in seasonal agricultural growing patterns, and severe weather conditions, including droughts and typhoons. This demands action to develop resilient agricultural methods to withstand climate change and improve food security.

Due to its low level of energy production, North Korea itself contributes relatively little to the growth in global greenhouse emissions that are causing climate change. North Korea ranks near the bottom globally in terms of per-capita emissions. Moreover, about half of the country's energy comes from hydropower, a clean energy source, although the rest is mainly provided by coal, the dirtiest of the fossil fuels.

But rising energy consumption and increased reliance on coal has meant that North Korea's CO2 emissions have nearly doubled since 2000 and are expected to grow by another 50 percent by 2030, according to GCF proposal.

The problems North Korea is experiencing due to climate change are also due to the fact that it sits next to much bigger producers of greenhouse gas emissions. China is the world's largest greenhouse gas emitter. Although China is turning to solar energy, wind power and hydro to counter climate change, it is still the source of yellow dust in the winter months that results in high levels of air pollution across the Korean peninsula.

Meanwhile, South Korea is struggling in its efforts to reduce per-capita carbon emissions and promote renewable energy since it continues to rely on coal-fired plants as it phases out nuclear power.

The expected launch of the GCF-backed project in North Korea in March 2020 provides an opportunity to promote regional cooperation in tackling climate change in Northeast Asia. The goal should be to make North Korea a model of low-emission and climate-resistant development. In the process it could help promote peace on the Korean peninsula, while contributing to a healthier planet.

Pyongyang's willingness to engage with U.N. climate and environmental programs, including signing the Paris climate agreement, is viewed as one way to help break its economic isolation as it seeks technology and financial support from potential international donors for renewable energy projects.

North Korea has several advantages to aid becoming a green economy based on renewables. One is that it already relies on hydropower for a considerable share of its energy production. Although North Korea's energy production from renewables in terms of megawatts was only about a third of that of South Korea in 2018, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency, that is an extraordinary high amount considering that North Korea's economy is much smaller than South Korea's.

Paradoxically, North Korea's economic backwardness is another advantage. It does not yet have an extensive fossil fuel-based infrastructure. That makes it easier to turn to renewables to power future growth if the planning is right.

North Korea has eagerly embraced the idea of incorporating solar and wind power as part of a new energy infrastructure since it also fits in with its Juche ideology of self-sufficiency. Sanctions cannot be applied to the sun or the wind. Rodong Sinmun, the leading state newspaper, has cited wind power as an "energy source with the greatest development potential" which "does neither runs out nor destroys the natural environment."

North Koreans are being encouraged to use solar panels in households to power electric appliances, including space heaters, with a corresponding fall in felling trees for firewood to warm their homes. This promises to limit deforestation; a major contributor to climate change.

But U.N. sanctions are making it difficult to pursue a renewable energy strategy. Sanctions have banned imports of solar panels since 2017, while supplies of copper wire and other basic materials needed for wind generators have also been affected.

Trump could help break the stalemate in talks on North Korea's denuclearization by offering to suspend sanctions on these items. It is in the world's interest for North Korea to reduce its carbon emissions and pursue a renewable energy strategy. It would be a win-win move. Call it North Korea's Green New Deal.

John Burton (johnburtonft@yahoo.com), a former Korea correspondent for the Financial Times, is a Washington, D.C.-based journalist and consultant.