Choice between
Environment
and Development

Conflict is present due to the need for
economic development projects to spur growth

Environmental preservation has become a great public concern lately across the country, especially with the enforcement of the Kyoto protocol last year. Civil environment groups held demonstrations against huge national projects including the Saemangeum reclamation and the Cheonseong Mountain Tunnel projects from alleged infringement of environment regulations and the protest and legal actions by the environmental groups to suspend projects placing them in jeopardy. The court had to step in and rulings finally settled the issues. Environment Minister Lee Jae-yong said damage to the national economy from the suspension of national projects should be minimized through dialogue with environmental groups with the government-civilian environment policy council as a vehicle, which was finally set up as a result of a year-long government effort to reestablish a dialogue channel with environmental groups. To comply with the Kyoto protocol, environmental technology is needed and the government has listed ET as one of the six major technology areas to be fostered as next-generation growth engines with some 1.45 trillion won to be invested in the program from 2001 to 2010.
Following are excerpts from an exclusive written interview with Environment Minister Lee on major environment issues and government policies:
Question: What are some of the Environment Ministry's major plans for this year's
Answer: We plan to make this year, the initial year for environmental health, which is the basic tenet for the protection of children and vulnerable people and in this regard, we plan to legislate the Environment Health Promotion Law and set up the environment health research center at the National Environment Science Institute.
We also plan to conduct checkups on children and those residents in regions of closed mines to protect them from being exposed to harmful materials, along with the inspection of construction material and daily necessities to see if they are harmful to people, especially to air inside homes and buildings.
We also plan to manage our land in the country based on prior planning and after development principles to prevent economic damage from the suspension of large national projects including the Saemangeum reclamation project. We will launch the strategic environment evaluation system starting in June. A plan is being developed to strengthen our role in environmental diplomacy to lead sustainable development around the earth.
Q: Can you explain to our readers the Asia-Pacific Partnership for the Clean Development and Climate Change, which was established at the Sydney Partnership Cabinet Ministerial Conference in Sydney, Australia, in January?
A: The Asia-Pacific Partnership was created to facilitate the development of technology and transfer to help the implementation of the Kyoto protocol to reduce gases and climate changes. The partnership was first proposed by the United States and three high-level officials meetings were held starting last year to agree on setting up the partnership. In January, the cabinet ministerial meeting in Sydney launched the partnership officially, along with the organization to manage it, cooperation areas, and promotion agenda. The partnership has decided eight cooperative areas including new reusable energy, steel, cement and aluminum, and others that have high discharge rates of gases and create task forces for each of those areas in the first half of this year to develop technologies to reduce harmful gases.
Q: Environmental technology has been drawing a lot of attention as a new growth engine. How high is our country's ET level and what are support policies to promote the development of technology?
A: ET has emerged as a sector with great possibility for development in the 21st century, along with IT and BT. The environmental technology market is expected to grow to $708.3 billion in 2010 from $543.4 billion in 2001(Source: U.S. Envt'l Business Int'l, 2003). The U.S., Germany, France, and Japan, among advanced countries, have been fostering ET as a national project providing government support, having designated it as a leading sector in the new century.
Korea is behind those countries in terms of technology with its ET development only about 10 years old. In the area of post-treatment, we are close to those countries, but in the prior pollution prevention technology area, Korea still has a lot to catch up. But the government has included ET in its 6 strategic technology items for development and continues to supply funds for development of those technologies, bringing bright growth prospects for its investment. The government is in the process of developing the technology to the level of advanced countries by 2010 as part of its project for the development of next-generation core technologies. From 2001 to 2010, a total of 1.435 trillion won will have been invested in the project with 1 trillion won to be provided by the government and the rest by the private sector. This year, some 93 billion won will be invested to develop technologies to cope with international environment regulations.
Q: It is generally believed that Korean business firms have not been exposed to handling the international trend for climate change requirement. Does the government have any measures to help SMEs to strengthen their capabilities to cope with climate change rules and lead general business firms to expand their investment in technologies to face climate change requirements?
A: The Kyoto protocol has been enforced since February of 2005 including mandatory gas reduction for advanced countries and ways to reduce them. But most of Korean industrial firms including SMEs and except automobile and semiconductors makers are not yet fully aware of the climate change protocol. They have yet to be ready to cope with the protocol properly due to either the lack of funds or technology. According to a survey made by the Korean Chamber of Commerce and Industry in October, 2004, 58.7 percent of 200 firms contacted said they have not been prepared to comply with the climate change protocol. The first reason for their unprepared state was they simply didn't know of the protocol (32.4 percent) and the second reason was the lack of funds and technology (24.1 percent).
The Environment Ministry will prepare incentive packages including financial support to business firms to help their efforts to comply with the protocol this year. The government support will extend to graduate schools to train climate change professional manpower so that business firms could employ them to cope with the climate change protocol regulations. The ministry will hold briefing sessions on the climate change protocol and examples in advanced countries to cope with the protocol for business firms around the country so that they could be prepared to comply with the protocol independently.
Q: How is the situation now compared to November, 2004, when civil and environmental groups formed an emergency environmental council and withdrew from the Civilian Environmental Group Policy Consultation Council?
A: The government inherited a very difficult environmental problem from the previous governments, which pushed development-oriented policies in the past 30 years and therefore, the government has been dealing with environmentally sound and sustainable development projects in its policies from the beginning of its term. But it has been receiving many criticisms from environmental groups as the long-term and mammoth projects reach completing stages now. The government and civilian environmental groups have not been able to hold meetings for about a year since the groups formed the Emergency Environmental Council in November, 2004 and bolted from the Civil Environmental Group Policy Consultation Council. But, as a result of the government's effort to continue to seek to hold dialogue with the environmental group through various channels, it was able to achieve an agreement from the group to establish a government-civilian environmental policy council in December, last year. The council was formally launched on February 9, reopening the government and civilian environmental group official dialogue channel for the first time for over a year. The environmental groups would be able to participate in the formulation of environmental policies from the beginning, parting from their past advisory roles and jointly establish environmental policies, implement and evaluate them. The close cooperation by civil environmental groups with the government will pave the way for close partnership to achieve a convergence in environmental issues between the government and environmental groups.
Q: What is your philosophy on various problems emanating from sharp points of matters for discussions surrounding environmental and developmental policy implementations?
A: I am sorry that large national projects are being delayed due to conflicts arising from the difficulty to secure a social agreement on either environmental preservation or development. Environment and development are like two wheels of a carriage and if one wheel is under heavy weight, the carriage will have difficulty moving. Therefore, the care should be taken to balance the load.
The Cheonseong Mountain Tunnel and the Saemangeum reclamation projects are not satisfactory when viewed from the current environmental standards. But they have been through legal and environmental evaluations and permitted to move forward. Therefore, if they don't have crucial defects which a majority of people agree with, those projects which have been carried out for several years now should be allowed to continue to be undertaken with their main frames in tack and revised and supplemented to solve their environmental problems if any.
As I said at the beginning, land in the country should be managed based on prior-plan and post-development principles to prevent economic damage from the suspension of large national projects and various conflicts arising should be prevented at the roots with the implementation of a strategic environmental evaluation system. nw

Environment Minister Lee Jae-yong