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  • 작성자 : 관리자
  • 등록일 : 2009.07.03
  • 조회수 : 2987
On “Green Growth”

by
H.E. Han Seung-soo

Prime Minister
of
the Republic of Korea

Paris, 25 June 2009


Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,

I have the great pleasure to present to you what Korea has been doing on green growth. I may take a longer time than 3 minutes.

In modern world history, the Industrial Revolution and on-going Information Revolution have significantly expanded the economy and enriched society across the globe. Since the Industrial Revolution, fossil-fuel has been the main driving force behind the continuous economic prosperity we have enjoyed. However, impacts of carbon dioxide emissions via fossil fuels on the environment have long been neglected. That is why the world is embarking on a “low-carbon revolution” in the face of global challenge of climate change on which the future of humanity so critically depends.

Personally, I have been heavily involved in the global issue of climate change and water. Before I was called back to public service in Korea last year, I served as Special Envoy of the UN Secretary-General on Climate Change together with Gro Harlem Brundtland, former Prime Minister of Norway and Ricardo Lagos, former President of Chile. I also serve as a Member of the UNSGAB, the UN Secretary-General's Advisory Board on Water and Sanitation chaired by the Prince of Orange of the Netherlands as well as the Founding Chair of the High-Level Expert Panel on Water and Disaster/UNSGAB.

Traveling widely to urge the world leaders to proactively tackle these critical issues, I witnessed an increasing number of countries turning their focused attention toward these issues and developing appropriate responses in order to strike a balance between economic growth and environmental sustainability.

Surely, there is growing international awareness that the conventional economic approach of ‘Grow First, Clean Up Later’ is not sustainable but should be replaced by a new approach which enables continued economic growth, prevents environmental degradation, and enhances quality of life.

On the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Republic of Korea on August 15th, last year, President Lee Myung-bak proclaimed ‘Low Carbon, Green Growth’ as Korea’s new national vision. This was to follow his announcement a month earlier at G-8 Summit in Japan that Korea would become an early mover in the issue of climate change.

During the 2008 G-8 Outreach Summit Meeting on Climate Change in Toyako, Hokkaido, Japan in early July last year, President Lee announced that Korea would like to play a bridging role between developed and developing countries, and to refine the Kyoto Protocol’s market-based mechanism as well as to make use of the Bali Roadmap in order to encourage the non-Annex I countries to take mitigation actions more voluntarily.

He also informed the G-8 leaders that Korea would launch the East Asia Climate Partnership, which will carry out climate change programs in the amount of approximately 200 million US dollars over the next 4 years, to support the countries in East Asia to make their economic growth compatible with nationally appropriate mitigation actions.

Early in January, Korea launched the Green New Deal policy as a part of the efforts to put the new national vision of ‘Low Carbon, Green Growth’ into policy action. The Green New Deal policy is an amalgam of a long-term policy of expanding growth potential through “green strategy” and a short-term stimulus policy of creating jobs and revitalizing economy through "new deal." In short, it aims to create a low-carbon economy while stimulating job creation. This initiative is a combination of neo-classical, supply-side economic policy with Keynesian, demand-oriented policy prescriptions. When we overcome the current economic crisis, the new deal portion of the policy will be phased out, leaving only green growth as the major economic goal to deal with. As you may have guessed had there been no global economic stagnation due to financial crisis, Korea would not have adopted the new deal part of the policy.

We are spending 50 trillion won, roughly 40 billion US dollars, in the next 4 years, creating 960,000 jobs. An important part of Korea's Green New Deal policy is to build fresh water infrastructure. To this end, the Korean government is energetically implementing a Four Major River Restoration Plan. It is a 22 trillion won, roughly 18 billion US dollars, multi-purpose project aiming at securing sufficient water supplies, upgrading water quality, preventing damages and destruction from natural disasters. The areas surrounding the four major rivers will be transformed into large ecological parks.

In order to successfully carry out the green growth part of the policy, the Korean government announced a blueprint mapping out 17 “new engines of growth.” These include six projects in green technology industries such as renewable energies, low-carbon energies, water management, LED applications, green transportation systems and state-of-the-art green city; and another six in state-of-the-art fusion technology industries including IT fusion with manufacturing technology, robot applications, new materials and nano fusion, bio-medicine, and high value-added food industry. An additional five projects finally make up the high value-added job creating industries which are global healthcare, global education services, green financing, contents and software, and MICE and the tourism industry.

I strongly believe that unlike in the traditional, quantity-oriented growth model where labor and capital are factors of production, the most important factor of production in the quality-oriented growth, green growth paradigm is state-of-the-art technology, transformational innovation and new ideas. Technology will play a major role in sustaining green growth in Korea in the future.

Korea is in the process of constructing a Green Growth 5-Year Plan with a 10-Year Rolling Plan. It will soon be formally announced. This may be the first attempt of its kind in the world. I hope that the Korean example will give rise to similar efforts in other nations as well.

We have also established a Presidential Commission on Green Growth and the National Assembly is currently in the process of deliberating to enact a Framework Law on Green Growth. The legislations will provide both the institutional and legal basis for aligning all national as well as local rules and regulations with the new paradigm.

As the main agents of implementing the green growth policy at the initial stage of implementation are the government officials at central as well as local levels and as the green growth as a concept of policy target is very new and so strange to most of them, they needed some educating to know what it is all about. For about 10 months since last summer, I, as Prime Minister, have been personally and directly in charge of training the government officials and therefore gave a series of lectures on climate change and green growth. Most of 3,000 director-level middle-ranking officials at the central government attended the lectures which I gave through 5 batches. I also toured the country to train and lecture the local government officials. Of 16 autonomous local governments, I have been to 14, giving lectures to a group of 300-400 officials at a time All in all about7,000-8,000 officials have received the training. We are also concentrating on increasing the public awareness of green growth through public relations and school education.

Through the new paradigm of ‘Low-Carbon Green Growth,’ Korea is hoping to catch three birds with one stone. These birds are, so to speak, creating new engines of growth returning to the higher growth path, while ensuring environmental and climatic sustainability, and actively contributing to the process of international negotiations to fight against global warming.

However, in an era of accelerated connectedness, we are reminded constantly of the necessity of a shared vision and policy coordination among the countries. Every single issue that we confront today and every single policy we are implementing is affected by changes that occur beyond our domestic controls and national boundaries. In particular, climate change is one of the best examples of external diseconomies on a global scale. How to internalize the external diseconomies is the major task that every nation on earth is currently faced with and in the absence of united resolve, will never be tackled successfully.

By changing, adapting, transforming and modernizing our economic system, the Korean Government is working tirelessly to move forward beyond the current financial crisis. We are looking to creative, integrated and forward-looking solutions that will also contribute to a global reduction in carbon emissions.

Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,

We stand at the critical juncture in the history of mankind. In a world marked by unprecedented progress but also by equally pervasive threats and challenges, we must not be afraid of crises.
It is said that the hallmark of wisdom is in knowing how to turn crisis into opportunity. The word crisis (危機) in Chinese is composed of two meanings; danger(危險) and opportunity(機會). Now that we are faced with the crisis, i.e. danger and opportunity, we must do our utmost to turning climate danger into change opportunity, the change for the better, the change for moving into a new paradigm of the green growth.

Thank you.