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Green Korea and Strengthening Global Green Growth Strategy
Keynote Speech delivered at Green Korea 2010, held in Seoul on September 9, 2010, at the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry, organized by the United Nations, the Presidential Committee on Green Growth and the National Research Council for Humanities, Economics and Social Sciences of the Republic of Korea
Mr. Sha Zukang, Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations;
Prof. Kim Cae-Won, Chairman of the National Research Council for Economics, Humanities and Social Sciences Institutes;
Ambassador In-Kook Park, Korea’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations;
Distinguished Participants;
Ladies and Gentlemen;
It a great honor for me to be standing here on this podium this morning on behalf of Korea’s Presidential Committee on Green Growth, as co-organizer of this conference.
I have to begin with apologies for having been delayed in joining in this opening session.
I had to attend an early morning ceremony held on the Blue House compound just before this.
The ceremony marked the test release of Hyundai Motors’ new electric vehicle called “BlueOn” which is run by a high-efficiency electric motor powered by a Lithium Ion Polymer Battery.
President Lee Myung-bak test-drove BlueOn. Its maximum speed is 130 km/hr. It can drive up to 140 km per charging. Hyundai will release 30 BlueOns in time for the Seoul G20 Summit, and 250 more till 2011 while the battery-charging infrastructure is developed and tested.
The new electric vehicle looked fabulous and promising. It has been developed for supply to the mass market, and as an electric vehicle, it is second in coming after the Japanese i-MiEV model released by Mitsubishi earlier this year but it surpasses the latter in performance in 5 categories while being equal to it in 2 other categories.
I mentioned this episode because I thought that this morning’s test release of Hyundai’s new electric vehicle is a good indicator of how far Korea’s bold new green growth venture has come.
Since President Lee Myung-bak declared ‘low carbon green growth’ to be Korea’s new development strategy two years ago, the Korean government has created and elaborated the institutional framework for its implementation. The Presidential Committee on Green Growth was created as the highest authority for deliberation, inter-Ministerial coordination, as well as public-private consultation, on green growth policies.
It currently consists of 14 Ministers and 36 private experts, co-chaired by the Prime Minister and myself. It is supported by an inter-Ministerial Secretariat consisting of senior elite officials. Local Green Growth Committees have been organized across the country.
The Presidential Committee has prepared and released the National Green Growth Development Strategy, a long-term policy blueprint and roadmap, for the period up to 2050, as well as the Five-Year Plan for Green Growth for the years up to 2013.
The Five-Year Plan proposes to allocate 2 percent of the annual GDP to green investments. The National Assembly has expressed a bipartisan support for green growth by passing the Basic Law for Low Carbon Green Growth, enabling the government to intervene in the market in various ways in order to make corrections for its failures.
Korea’s green growth policies so defined pursue the following objectives:
- Mitigation of, and adaptation to, climate change;
- Achievement of energy independence;
- Creation of new growth engines;
- Improvement of the people’s quality of life; and,
- Enhancement of Korea’s international contribution.
The Presidential Committee has held eight formal deliberative meetings, in the presence of the President in seven of those meetings, debating and agreeing more than 30 specific policy documents. Policy directions have been set by field and specific actions are now being taken for their implementation. The market has begun to respond.
Thus, 30 big business groups invested in green businesses in the combined total of 15.1 trillion won during the previous three years, recording the annual growth of 78%.
A survey shows that the same groups plan to invest in green businesses over the subsequent period till 2013 in the total amount of 22.4 trillion, or 48% more than the preceding three years. New and renewable energies, green cars, high-efficiency electric appliances and equipment such as LED and fuel cell, are the leading areas for those investment.
All major business groups are announcing their development visions for the period up to 2020 or 2025, adopting ‘green management’ as one of their core values, and according the top priority to ‘green investment’.
Numerous small businesses are also boldly exploring green businesses. Of course, most of them are still in their risk-ridden venture stages, while some have already successfully landed in the global market as leading suppliers of parts and components such as solar and wind power parts and components.
Local governments are also engaged in their own green growth drives. For example, they are supporting wind power and bio energy as well as eco-house projects in their respective areas. They are also trying to host major national projects. For example, the island province, Jeju, is hosting the test-and-demonstration compound for the national smart grid project.
The government is the motor for those private sector developments. It is developing and deploying a broad portfolio of regulatory as well as supportive measures.
The key driver of the regulatory measures is the national aggregate greenhouse gas emissions reduction target which was declared by President Lee in November last year to be minus 30% relative to BAU by 2020. The Green Growth Committee is preparing the action plan for allocation and enforcement of this target in order to come up with specific allocations by sector and major entity by the second half of 2011.
The business sector is stressed and yet also preparing to overcome the reduction challenge.
The government is preparing assistance to the businesses for those efforts, for example by administering such measures as the ‘energy use and greenhouse gas emissions target management’ for individual businesses and plants. The government is also offering R&D incentives as well as green financing for SMEs in their venture stages.
The government is itself engaged in specific green projects.
Korea is engaged in a Four Major Rivers Restoration Project. This is a huge infrastructure project for adaptation to climate change, especially in proactive efforts to adapt to the increasingly severe water resources management challenge due to global warming.
The Korean rivers have been growing increasingly shallow over many decades, creating many ‘dry’ rivers for many months in the year, because of the accumulation of earth and waste at their bottom. In the meantime, the rainfall has been increasing in its total annual volume while also getting increasingly concentrated in terms of its duration. Floods and droughts are growing more severe and damaging.
Some environmental activities are expressing their concern over the consequences of the project. But the need for the project is compelling. Korea has to increase the normal quantity level of water held in national river system to mitigate the risks of flood and droughts while also offering more spacious shelter to river eco system.
On September 1, just last week, the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs announced a bold plan to expand the national railroad network and to make all railroads high-speed by 2017, linking all local hub cities.
The project would allow movement of people and cargoes between any pair of those cities by train within 1 hour and half through more than 85% of the national territory. Each high-speed rail station will be made the center of the local high-speed mass transit networks.
When completed, the project will facilitate dispersion of businesses and plants over the country, changing the national economic landscape.
More to the point for the purpose of this conference, the new high-speed rail network will facilitate a major model shift of passenger and cargo traffic from the road to the railroad, contributing to the goal of reducing the greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector by 33~37% relative to BAU by 2020.
But then, imagine also all other major beneficial consequences of this green project!
Green growth is exciting. It is taking roots in Korea, well alive and kicking.
All these and other green growth policies and projects of its own will enable Korea to contribute to the promotion of green growth in developing countries by sharing its own experiences with them. It is this objective that the Korean government hopes to achieve by undertaking a number of initiatives under the umbrella objective of enhancing Korea’s international contribution to global development, especially, in the area of climate change mitigation and adaption as well as sustainable growth and development.
Korea is increasing its ODA commitment, with emphasis on green ODA. It has launched the East Asian Climate Partnership initiative.
It is the champion for the UNESAP’s Seoul Initiative Network on Green Growth, as well as for the OECE’s Green Growth Project.
It has also launched the Global Green Growth Institute or GGGI as an international research and assistance institute for the promotion of green growth worldwide.
Ladies and Gentlemen:
In all those ways, Korea is endeavoring to reconcile the climate change and other environmental challenges with the economic growth challenge. In this endeavor, Korea, however, is exploring an uncharted territory. Korea has to continue to identify and explore new opportunities while also coping with various difficulties and risks in doing so.
Korea has come a considerable way, already. At the same time, it has a much longer way to go in the years to come.
This is what the test launching of Hyundai’s BlueOn model signifies. We have made a good start. But we have to continue the long journey.
The purpose of today’s Green Korea 2010 is to assess how far we have come, and how to chart the next portion of this journey on the green growth track, to see what are the priority challenges and discuss how to cope with them.
This is a very important conference. The Presidential Committee is proud to have co-organized it with the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, and the Korean National Research Council on Humanities, Economics, Economics, and Social Sciences, as well as the UNDESA.
I would like to thank Mr. Sha Zukang, UN Under-Secretary-General and Chairman of the UN Council on Sustainable Development, and Professor Kim Cae-One, Chairman of the Korean National Research Council, for their initiatives and partnership.
I also would like to thank all participants in this conference, and hope that they will have a fruitful conference as well as enjoy it.
Thank you very much for your attention
Sep.92C2010_GreenKoreaandStrengtheningGlobalGreenGrowth_Strategy.docx