A Critical Review and New Policy Framework of Low-Carbon, Green-Growth Strategy of Korea

Abstract

The Korean government recently announced the official national greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction target, which is to cut carbon emissions by 30% from its business-as-usual (BAU) level forecast for 2020. In this chapter, we critically review the contents and processes of the low-carbon green growth national strategy as it has existed up to now, and then suggest a new framework to help realize the ambitious vision and the goals.

This chapter summarizes the prominent characteristics of the contents and processes of the national strategy based on critical reviews of all the relevant governmental and private responses. The results from this case study enable us to propose a new framework for the development and evaluation of national low-carbon, green growth (LCGG) strategies. We focus on various stakeholders who can compete against and cooperate with other players in the game. The dynamic interaction involves both the top-down and bottom-up drivers of change. Also we propose that a national LCGG strategy should incorporate the policy effects not just within the country borders, but also on the global supply chains. LCGG strategies require many disruptive changes in business and technology platforms. There are huge uncertainties in the competition among alternative platforms. We propose a multi-sided market competition model to help analyze the dynamics of this phenomenon. The evolutionary progress toward a global standard will determine the performance of these efforts.