The \u201cGreen New Deal\u201d has become a hot button in South Korea. To cope with the economic damage caused by Covid-19 as well as the climate emergency, \u201cGreen New Deal\u201d policies have been intensely debated and will soon be implemented. But the concept and its content remain a battleground. To some, it\u2019s enough for it to be an updated version of \u201cLow-carbon Green Growth\u201d implemented by ex-president Lee Myung-Bak in 2008. To others, it\u2019s an opportunity to transform South Korea\u2019s economy and society that the country can\u2019t afford to miss. Considering South Korea\u2019s disappointing record on climate action, the future prospects of a \u201cGreen New Deal\u201d may seem dim. However, civil society is actively engaging in public discussion to argue for a \u201cPeople\u2019s version of the Green New Deal\u201d which could better equip South Korea for its fight against climate emergency and social inequality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During South Korea\u2019s parliamentary election in mid-April, which was the world\u2019s first national election amid the pandemic, the ruling centrist Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), the centre-right Party for People\u2019s Livelihoods (PPL), the centre-left Justice Party (JP) and the left Green Party Korea (GPK) all made pledges around \u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ada \u201cGreen New Deal\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The idea stems from Franklin D. Roosevelt\u2019s New Deal, a series of massive government interventions to salvage the United States from the Great Depression. It has been gaining traction in the US since late 2018. At that time, Democratic members of the congress tabled a Green New Deal proposal to drastically decarbonise the economy with massive public spending, while providing millions of green jobs to underprivileged Americans. Early this year, the European Union launched its \u201cEuropean Green Deal\u201d, aiming to achieve carbon neutrality in the bloc by 2050. Both are bold undertakings, comparable to the Apollo programme to land people on the moon, and strive for a just transition. The Korean parties who vied for the presidency and parliamentary seats are believed to have drawn inspiration from both.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
DPK\u2019s climate manifesto, published in March, explicitly referred to these two plans in the US and Europe, and promised to pass a \u201cGreen New Deal Special Act\u201d to steer the country\u2019s transformation to a low-carbon economy and to realise a \u201ccarbon zero society\u201d in 2050.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The PPL announced it would reduce the amount of fine dust and greenhouse gas pollution by 50%, through a \u201c10-Year Green Economy New Deal Project\u201d, and also enact \u201cthe Climate Crisis Response Act\u201d and create one million environmental jobs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The JP pledged to withdraw coal-power generation and ban automobiles with internal combustion engines by 2030, to convert public transportation into electric vehicles, to carry out green renovation of one million houses, and to ensure net-zero emissions for newly built public rental homes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The GPK proposed to achieve a 50% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and net-zero emissions by 2050. To achieve that, it proposed a carbon budget (of allowable emissions) and a greenhouse gas emissions impact assessment system. It also aimed for fairness during this transition by providing a universal basic income and forming a just transition committee to oversee the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
DPK won the election by a landslide. Given its dominance in parliament, expectations for implementing the Green New Deal policies were high. South Korea was acclaimed<\/a> as \u201cthe first country in East Asia to pledge to reach net zero emissions by 2050\u201d. Yet the response of the government has since been passive and slow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On 7 May, the government announced a \u201cKorean version of the New Deal\u201d as part of its Innovative Growth Policy<\/a>. It contains three major tasks: \u201cbuilding digital infrastructure,\u201d \u201ccultivating non-face-to-face industries\u201d and \u201cdigitising social overhead capital.\u201d According to the announcement, building digital infrastructure will help industries that utilise and process data to create more jobs. Fostering \u201cnon-face-to-face industries\u201d is a reaction to the Covid-19 pandemic, with examples including telemedicine, distance education and cyber security using blockchain. While digitising social overhead capital refers to managing old roads and railroads electronically, expanding advanced logistics centres and building road data to be used by autonomous vehicles in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In response to the announcement, members of civil society \u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u2013 environmental NGOs, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, and the Green Party Korea criticised the \u201cKorean version of the New Deal\u201d as in fact a major stimulus package for large corporations, and merely an expansion of the Innovative Growth Policy presented by the administration in its previous term. Even the former co-chair of the Platform Party, a satellite party of DPK, Professor Choi Bae-Geun (\ucd5c\ubc30\uadfc), told KBS News<\/a> that the real challenge for the Korean economy is to create a new industry and a new economic structure to replace the existing manufacturing industry and lead to stable growth. He thinks \u201cthe Korean version of the New Deal\u201d seems to be just a new investment plan without considering measures of relief, reform and recovery, the key elements of Roosevelt\u2019s New Deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Things changed on 13 May when a spokesperson for the Blue House said President Moon Jae-in had asked some ministries to examine the possibility of including a \u201cGreen New Deal\u201d in the Korean version of the New Deal. On 20 May, the spokesperson confirmed that the Green New Deal would be included in the framework of the \u201cKorean version of the New Deal\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n US$22 billion<\/p> The predicted total budget for the Korean ‘Green New Deal’ by 2025<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n As of 10 June, the government\u2019s third supplementary budget<\/a> of the year set aside US$30 billion, out of which the Korean version of the New Deal takes around US$4.2 billion. The government included several projects under the name of \u201cGreen New Deal\u201d, such as improving energy efficiency in infrastructure, establishing innovative ecosystem for green industries, developing low-carbon and distributed energy systems, and retrofitting old public buildings for energy saving. The total budget for the Green New Deal is around US$1.1 billion for 2020, and will amount to around US$22 billion by 2025. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The comprehensive plan for the Green New Deal will be issued in early July. But there are great uncertainties about the scope and ambition of the plan, because there is no solid consensus about the definition of \u201cGreen New Deal\u201d between the government and the civil society, much less its approach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is evident in the response of key civil society actors to the government\u2019s proposal. Climate Strike, a coalition of 377 NGOs, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, and political parties like the Green Party Korea and the Justice Party all said the proposal has no big difference from the Low-carbon Green Growth strategy of 12 years ago. In fact, on 13 May, when a reporter asked a Blue House spokesperson the meaning of the \u201cGreen New Deal\u201d, he replied it was an updated and modified version of Green Growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This older version of Green New Deal was proposed by ex-president Lee Myung-Bak as a tool for his Low-carbon Green Growth strategy in 2008, when the recession hit. At that time, the Green New Deal was proposed as a means to achieve economic growth and environmental conservation simultaneously, through both technological solutions and fostering environmentally friendly industries, including renewable energies. However, the so-called Green Growth was criticised by civil society as greenwashing, because it featured construction-oriented schemes like more nuclear power plants and the Four Major Rivers Restoration Project. That project in fact saw 16 large dams built in the middle of the four rivers. These created huge algal blooms<\/a>, even in the upper reaches of the rivers, and had limited capacity to control flooding in spite of an investment of around US$3 billion. Thus, the 2008 Green New Deal was not regarded as \u201cgreen\u201d by the environmental community, despite there being some attractive policies in it, including ones for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and expanding renewable energy. Heated public discussions about the concept in the US and Europe have certainly contributed. But much of it, especially from the political and economic elites, has grown out of the pressing need to overcome the economic recession caused by the pandemic. This despite South Korea being more successful in containing the virus than many other countries. Meanwhile, calls for \u201calternative development\u201d from trade unions, environmental NGOs and political parties like the Green Party Korea have been mounting. Most of all, South Korea\u2019s international image as a \u201cclimate villain\u201d has intensified a sense that action must be taken. In 2016, Climate Action Tracker, an independent initiative by international NGOs, announced a short list of \u201cclimate villains\u201d. South Korea led the list followed by Saudi Arabia, Australia and New Zealand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, apart from having different views of Green New Deal from the government, civil society also doubts its will and ability to implement the deal amid tough resistance from vested interests, in particular the conglomerates that have stranded assets in fossil fuel related industries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In fact, in South Korea we can barely stop the despotism of conglomerates. For example, the current government allowed US$1 billion to bail out Doosan Heavy Industry Company, a failing coal power developer, without demanding the company invest the money in greener business opportunities than coal power. On the contrary, the government is supporting the export of coal power plants by Doosan and Korea Electric Power Corporation to Indonesia and Vietnam with its approval of a preliminary feasibility study. Will the Korean government exert strong climate regulation on the conglomerates? The answer might be negative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 6.5%<\/p> The proportion of South Korea’s energy mix made up of ‘new and renewable energy’<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n South Korea\u2019s climate policies have also been disappointing. Its share of coal-fired power generation is 40.4%, while that of new and renewable energy (such as solar, wind, landfill gas, and by-product gas) was just 6.5% in 2019, according to The Statistics of Korea Electric Power Corporation of 2020. <\/p>\n\n\n\n To achieve the government\u2019s goals, it\u2019s necessary to make drastic and fundamental reforms. But will they be possible? Except for a slight decrease in 2014, South Korea\u2019s greenhouse gas emissions have been rising continuously for the last decade. According to the \u201c2030 GHG Reduction Roadmap\u201d the government unveiled in 2018, on a business-as-usual pathway emissions expected to be around 850 million tons in 2030, and the goal was to reduce that by 35% to 536 million tons. However, the IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5\u00b0C, published in 2018, states that to align itself with the goal of limiting warming to the 1.5\u00b0C set in the Paris Agreement, South Korea must release no more than 340 million tons of CO2 equivalent by 2030. Considering this, it can be said that the roadmap for emissions reduction proposed by South Korea is too na\u00efve and complacent. Earlier this year, the Global Climate Change Performance Index ranked South Korea 58th<\/a> out of 61 countries. And Climate Action Tracker estimated<\/a> that Korea\u2019s target for reducing its emissions is insufficient and passive. They suggested it is necessary to raise the ambition to more than twice the current level to meet the terms of the Paris Agreement. Actually, in February 2020, the central government revealed the first draft of the Long-term Low Emission Development Strategy (LT-LEDS) of South Korea. Every party to the Paris Agreement is required to submit an LT-LEDS by the end of this year, and it should include concrete and practical roadmaps and measures regarding how to reduce emissions. However, surprisingly enough, there is no goal of net zero emissions by 2050 in South Korea\u2019s draft LT-LEDS. Before this coming September, South Korea should set a new emissions reduction target.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThere is no solid consensus about the definition of \u2018Green New Deal\u2019 between the government and civil society, much less its approach.<\/blockquote><\/cite><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
The government\u2019s poor green records<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
In the successive administrations of Park Geun-hye, Hwang Kyo-ahn and even Moon Jae-in, environmental issues did not receive much attention. So, what has revived the public conversation about a Green New Deal in South Korea after 12 years?<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe roadmap for emissions reduction proposed by South Korea is too na\u00efve and complacent.<\/blockquote><\/cite><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n