Green Growth as Development Plan

Sets its sights on becoming a global top five green powerhouse by 2050 under the national green growth paradigm

The following are excerpts of an interview between NewsWorld and Yoon Jong-soo, deputy minister for environmental policy at the Ministry of Environment, who touched on the government’s green growth strategies, greenhouse gas emissions control and other environmental policies.
Question: Will you tell our readers about the government’s low carbon, green growth strategies?
Answer: Last July, the government established the direction of a policy for green growth and announced a national strategy and a five-year plan on green growth calling for action tasks to be carried out.
It has adopted a green growth vision to be among the world’s top seven by 2020 and the global top five by 2050 and has explored the three core strategies and specific policies to achieve those goals.
Initially, the government has set energy self-sufficiency as the primary strategy so that responses to climate change can be strengthened and an energy/natural resources crisis can be addressed efficiently. This strategy calls for raising the new and renewable energy supply rate from the current 2 percent to 11 percent by 2030.
Second, we strive to create future growth engines by developing green technology and nourishing the green industry. To this end, in May 2009 the government unveiled strategies to develop the top 27 core green technologies and commercialize them and announced a plan to double R&D outlays for developing green technologies, which amounted to 1.4 trillion won in 2008, by 2012.
Third, the government is devoting itself to enhancing the environmental-friendliness of green infrastructure so that people can put into practice “green living” and Korea can become an exemplary green-growth nation by faithfully conforming to responsibilities to the international community.
In an effort to effectively realize these strategies, it is putting in motion a plan to pour 107.4 trillion won, equivalent to some 2 percent of the nation’s GDP, during the five-year period between 2009 and 2013. Given the fact that the figure is above the UNEP’s recommendations for setting aside green investments equivalent to 1 percent of GDP, the nation is rated an exemplary state.
Q: Will you introduce the major environmental policies to be carried out during the year?
A: Since 2008 when low-carbon, green growth was proposed as a new national paradigm, the government has built a solid infrastructure for implementing green growth policies. As mentioned, there are the national strategies and the five-year plan on green growth, the Framework Act on Low-Carbon, Green Growth, which went into effect this past April, and the national mid-term goals on GHG emission reductions, announced last year.
The year 2010 marks the third anniversary of declaring the low-carbon, green growth paradigm. Now is the time when substantive outcomes should be made on the basis of the institutional infrastructure we’ve built so far. In this context, the Ministry of Environment is striving to contribute to entering the take-off stage by focusing on major growth projects and responses to climate change.
In order to push ahead with the Four Rivers Restoration Project, the most pending issue and one of the nation’s representative green growth projects, without a hitch, we’re implementing such environmental steps as the introduction of total phosphorous treatment facilities and the expansion of wastewater treatment plants while planning to take environmental steps to protect streams and tributaries, other than just the four rivers, from pollution. The government also plans to step up such field surveillance measures as the management of water resource intake and water treatment plants, water pollution monitoring and preventive activities while strengthening communication with people to attain public understanding and cooperation on the Four Rivers Restoration Project.
The government has built a national inventory infrastructure by establishing the Greenhouse Gas Inventory & Research Center of Korea last June to achieve its mid-term goals on GHG emissions reductions by 2020. It plans to make seamless preparations for the introduction of a GHG and energy goal management system on the basis of this infrastructure.
Q: Will you elaborate on the direction of the implementation of a greenhouse gas and energy goal management system?
A: The greenhouse gas and energy goal management system has been in place with the Oct. 4, 2009 enforcement of the Framework Act on Low Carbon Green Growth. The year 2010 is the first year of implementing the system, which will focus on setting comprehensive guidelines for the operation of a target management system in order to build a regime for assessing and managing greenhouse gas emissions. A combination of greenhouse gas and energy targets will be operated to ease misgivings over double restrictions and a more flexible methodology of total emissions will be employed in consideration of firms’ investment plans and Business As Usual predictions. In particular, the government plans to consider whether earlier reduction credits would be allowed in case of the enforcement of a cap and trade system to give diverse incentives to firms which outdo their targets or whether additional credits would be given in the case of certifying a green management regime.
But the adopting of all processes right away in the first year of implementation could be burdensome to some firms, so a preparatory period is needed as the Regulatory Reform Commission suggested. During this year, a focus will be on designating firms subject to management and determining the exact figures of their emissions rather than setting 2011 targets. To this end, firms subject to management will be designated by September, and they are required to report emissions during the period between 2007 and 2010 by next March. Comprehensive standards and guidelines will be finalized in the second half after fully collecting views from the general public and related ministries through public hearings.
The government plans to impose on the firms the 2012 emission targets and achieve them, based on the outcomes of the 2010 execution of the system.
Q: Will you comment on a plan to introduce a carbon tax?
A: All ministries of the government agree on the need to overhaul taxation so as to encourage energy conservation in response to climate change and energy price hikes. Given the immense impact on the national economy and society that the introduction of a carbon tax would have, there should be caution when considering it, so such specifics as the timing and how to introduce it have yet to be discussed.
Under a precondition of public consensus on the necessity and rationale for introducing a carbon tax, an inter-ministry strategy and support from the political circles are essential for success. In this regard, the government must introduce a carbon tax step-by-step in cooperation with relevant ministries in such a way as to minimize the burden of industry circles and the general public and in consideration of international trends.
The Ministry of Strategy and Finance, responsible for taxation, needs to play a leading role in introducing a carbon tax, but the Environment Ministry plans to continuously propose introducing it so that inter-ministry discussions on the issue can be launched at the earliest possible date.
Q: Will you tell our readers about the current status of Korea’s technology development and future strategies?
A: The domestic environment technology industry stood at an equivalent of 10 percent to 30 percent of advanced countries’ levels until the early 1990s. R&D support through such projects as the Highly Advanced Project, dubbed the “G-7 Project,” which was carried out during the period between 1992 and 2001 and the Eco-technopia 21, which was conducted during the period between 2001 and 2010, has paid off. Of late, the nation has managed to upgrade its technological levels in such areas as air, water, waste and ecological restoration to 60 percent to 80 percent of those of advanced countries. Korea has developed technologies on electric industry waste treatment and recycling for the first time in the world or owns the world’s best technologies in those areas.
In particular, automobile gas exhaust reduction, membrane filtration for advanced water treatment, and the highly efficient separation & recycling system for excavated landfill waste are made available in implementing policies to improve air conditions in the Seoul metropolitan area, supply clean tap water and transform wastes into resources. They have greatly contributed to enhancing Korean firms’ ability to compete in the international markets by increasing technological self-sufficiency through the localization of core part imports and related technologies and their industrial competitive edge.
Thanks to such strides in environmental technology, the local environment industry has seen turnovers surge an annual rate of more than 15 percent and exports climb an annual average of 33 percent for the recent five years.
The nation, however, needs to push ahead with environmental technology development and advancement strategies to effectively cope with new environment issues and nourish green technologies in accordance with the national green growth vision.
Accordingly, the government plans to increase the Environment Ministry’s budget from the current 4 percent of the nation’s total budgetary amounts to a range of 7 percent by 2012, while exploring and expanding R&D projects suitable to each of the policies to cope with new environmental issues in a comprehensive and systematic fashion. The government plans to change the supply-oriented R&D paradigm to a demand-oriented one while establishing short- and long-term R&D investment strategies by distinguishing essential and non-essential things in achieving national environmental goals and addressing environmental problems. It also plans to revamp the R&D system by adopting a large-scale business development corps-style methodology instead of implementing department store-style small-size development tasks so that tangible R&D outcomes can be made. nw

Yoon Jong-soo, deputy minister for environmental policy at the Ministry of Environment