Low-carbon economics is a new model of economic development in both international and domestic settings as well as the only way for all mankind to deal with climate change and achieve sustainable economic development. In addition to controlling carbon dioxide emissions, the low-carbon economic development model indicates an energy revolution that will fundamentally change production as well as people’s social and economic lifestyle. Low-carbon development has drawn close attention from the international community and has progressed into action in many countries. The world is gradually approaching the low-carbon age for the main purpose of pursing low energy consumption, low emission and high efficiency. The low-carbon economic cooperation aimed at environmental diplomacy is also in the process of active and effective negotiation and implementation. This paper will introduce the low-carbon economic development strategies in South Koreaand the results in practice so far and then summarize the applicable experience and inspiration from the practical significance ofSouth KoreatoChina.
With the emergence of the terms low-carbon economy, green economy and circular economy and ecological economy, various countries in the world began to adhere to the spirit of the Conference in Bali and the purpose of Kyoto Protocol in the context of dealing with climate changes to pursue sustainable economic development. China and South Korea are also facing these challenges and opportunities, so the governments have continually introduced policies to promote the realization of a lowcarbon economy and hope to achieve a true eco-economy in the future. With the increasing competition of lowcarbon and low carbon technology barriers, all countries think about their suitable low-carbon technologies and strategies. Therefore, low-carbon transformation has become the epochal thought and the inevitable trend. The society is also expanding the role of low-carbon in the corporate social responsibilities, producing new understanding of the corporate social responsibility, reshaping the image of enterprise, society and citizen through lower carbon emissions, and promoting sustainable development in the national economy.
The economic cooperation between China and South Korea has been focusing on the study and cooperation of sustainable economic development models with the concept of green growth at its core in both countries in recent years. However, important prerequisite’s for these discussions are the necessity, feasibility and relatively bright future of sustainable economic development and cooperation. Moreover, in recent years, both national governments have offered strong policy support. All countries expect to find out the best ecological model of economic development through their energy strategy. With the rise of China, which is an important partner in the international trade, South Korea’s economic dependence on China is becoming more and more visible.
Generally, the economic fit and interdependence between China and South Korea is extensive. Due to the failure of obtaining corresponding theoretical guidance, most are distributed evenly in various refined areas. If political obstacles cannot be effectively resolved, the economic cooperation in East Asia is bound to be faced with a situation of power shortage and/or organizational laxity. However, this study will first start from the low-carbon economic development strategies in Korea in order to lay a foundation for future low-carbon economic cooperation between China and Korea. In other words, during the process in which low-carbon economic development and cooperation between China and South Korea grows from a low stage (economic integration) to the advanced stage (political and social integration), it is necessary to study and analyze South Korea’s low-carbon economic development strategies and then elevate them to an economic and trade development theory of strong operability and instructional meaning. This can assist the theories of China’s sustainable economic development foster a harmonious international trade relationship and play a guiding role in the successful low-carbon transformation within China.
South Korea is a country with poor resources and leading population density. Its average per capita amount of arable land is less than an acre. It is in the inherently limited land that Korean economy has created the sustainable and rapidly developed Han River Miracle since the 1960s. Looking at the contributions to success and comparing them with other developing countries that started almost simultaneously (such as Brazil, Argentina and other countries in South America) it can be found that Korea’s success is mainly attributed to its government’s appropriate selection of economic growth models and developmental strategies that comply with its national conditions according to the environment at home and abroad.
Like China, South Korea builds its economy on the energy consumption during the period of rapid economic development. In the era of global warming, such growth strategies lack sustainability [
The South Korean government departments have also taken action. The Ministries of Finance, Environment and Knowledge Economy all take relevant measures to support the research, development, application promotion and industrialization of green information technology and work together to improve the national competitiveness of green information technology, thus achieving the green growth. The Ministry of Finance in South Korea will spend a substantial sum of money in supporting the research and development of green technology and funding the SMEs in South Korea for green technology research and development. Meanwhile, the South Korean government will also provide tax preference to enterprises which research and develop green technology. The Ministry of Environment in South Korea proposes to accelerate the development of ten green technologies, including the seven core technologies of water treatment, green cars, measures for climate change, soil and groundwater contamination purification, the use and restoration of biological resources, environmental protection, and efficient resource recovery, and three basic technologies of basic environmental pollution improvement, greenhouse gas alternatives, living consensus-based environmental products. The Ministry of Knowledge Economy in South Korea has announced an increase in the investment in the R&D of related technologies in new and renewable energies, published the route map for green resources technology research and development strategy by the government as well as 73 large, medium and small South Korean enterprises (some leading IT enterprises like Samsung and LG serve as the base) and determined 15 sun fields which will become increasingly importance toward 2030. Meanwhile, the South Korean Ministry of Knowledge Economy has made the medium-term objective of reducing the standby power consumption for televisions, computers, monitors, printers, multifunction printers, set-top boxes and microwave ovens. If the standby power consumption of these products exceeds the state regulations, they must be labeled with the yellow warning sticker. In addition, the KIPO has also developed and published the Promotion Plan of Green Development Intellectual Property Strategy which emphasizes improving the protection level of technical intellectual property, especially the protection of green IT intellectual property based on the results of demonstration projects in four technical fields such as the new generation of semiconductors and monitors [
South Korea is now facing dual tasks. One is to maintain the sustained economic development and the other is to protect the environment through green development strategies and projects. The economic growth of South Korea is based on the input-based expanding model. South Korea is the tenth largest energy consumer in the world. 97% of its energy is imported. Nowadays, due to the crisis of climate change, South Korea is changing the economic development model to achieve the new development model of a low-carbon and green economy and reduced carbon dioxide emissions [
In 2009, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, known for environmental protection, proposed the national strategy for green growth and personally supervised the bottom-up Green National Movement, in an attempt to find a new engine of economic recovery. The aim was to breakthrough to a green philosophy based on the characteristics and advantages of the industrial development within the country. South Korea has always enjoyed a worldwide reputation for its advanced information technology. The integration of strong information technology with emerging green concepts is bound to generate and spark new ideas, thus producing varied results. Today, in various media and research institutions, the green vocabulary such as green growth, low-carbon development, Green New Deal, green jobs and green homes are everywhere. No doubt, the green growth promoted through information technology will become the next competitive point for the economic development in South Korea [
The report published by the Ministry of Planning and Finance (Economic Policy Direction in the Second Half of 2010) said that the predictor of economic growth rate of South Korea in 2010 was adjusted from 5% to 5.8% and was expected to reach 6.1% for the year overall [
In order to allow enterprises to learn more about environmental policies and response strategies so as to emphasize corporate social responsibility and expand new elements of education for corporate social responsibility as well as systematizing the green growth strategy in the design industry, South Korean design-related management committee regularly holds the green design seminars. These enhance the employees’ understanding of green trends to help convey eco-friendly concepts in their designs. POSCO, Samsung SDI and Liu Han-Kimberley all have recognized the new opportunities for business brought about by climate change and have launched enterprise strategies with low carbon, green, environmental protection and other concepts [
In order to better promote and implement the national strategy of green growth, South Korea set up the Green Growth Commission directly under the Office of the President (referred to GGC for short). GGC is composed of 47 members, including three sub-committees, namely the green growth and industry, climate change and energy, green living and sustainable development committees [
South Korea and Japan established a joint venture company and have reached an agreement recently of expanding the largest solar power plant in Asia [
Furthermore, South Korea will implement efficient transportation and green transportation, aiming to become a global supply base for traffic and building materials. We can use the existing opportunities for cooperation with the global companies in shipbuilding and car manufacturing to achieve this goal. Green transport has many advantages and there are many very good companies, some of which have an iron, steel and chemical industry manufacturing background as well as the related test centers. South Korea has been committed to IT cooperation with other countries, areas and enterprises for the long term publicizing and promoting of the national advanced IT, and helping IT enterprises expand their international markets [
By the use of reverse thinking, the South Korean government regards the current financial crisis as an opportunity to drive the green growth of the enterprise economy while promoting the green growth of the whole country through green industry restructuring, research and development. South Korea is named as the first country to consider a green strategy program to be a national core development strategy by UNEP. Its ongoing green development strategy programs are strongly systematic. South Korea’s new government takes the low carbon economy as a new driving force of economic growth and national competitiveness as well as a favorable factor of promoting environmental diplomacy, which undoubtedly offers some inspiration to Chinese diplomacy policy which is currently facing diplomatic troubles around the promotion of industrial structure adjustment and the transformation of economic development within the country.
From the close cooperation and joint promotion of lowcarbon economy of the South Korean governments, the Chinese government should play the dual role of government and enterprise while attaching importance to the low-carbon economy to understand the markets orientation. It should invest in and support enterprises carrying out green growth technologies, establish the citizens’ trust on government and enterprise fundamentally, and implement the guide of green consumption in three directions of government, business and citizens simultaneously. Currently, China has some problems in positioning discrepancy, which makes the economic policy support separately the standpoint for a long term solution without the realistic market research and the communication and supervision of local scholars and the public. The result is that a lot of money isn’t fully utilized in the development and promotion of the real low-carbon economy. Therefore, from an investment orientation of the government’s supporting funds, in order to guide development and carbon trade of capital towards investing in new energies and to improve high-efficiency technologies research and other low-carbon economic industrial development, it is necessary to take advantage of the experience of South Korea and other countries to build the norms and mechanisms needed to measure green growth-style enterprises.
China also shows the trend of government orientation in the search for a new green economic development model. Starting from the national strategic perspective, our country focuses on top-level design, and investigates researches and develops information to promote the policy of green economic development with guidance and supervision. However, as China is a vast region, with great differences among the areas in information technology research, application level and the level of economic and social development, the local governments cannot be generalized in promoting the transformation of regional economic development modes by the use of information technology. They should instead increase the application of information technology in energy saving and emission reduction while studying and learning from the experience and lessons of the advanced areas. In promoting green growth they should use information technology selectively and purposefully according to the real local situations. They cannot blindly copy modes and policies but must shoot the arrow at the target. Most of our people have very poor low-carbon consumer awareness, so the state and local governments should make great efforts to guide people to learn and practice the scientific developing concept, publicize and popularize knowledge of climate change via television, newspapers, books, videos and other promotional tools and instruments to let the cadres and masses to know and recognize the importance and urgency of dealing with climate change and understand the significant impact of climate change on the development and competitiveness of state, region and enterprises. They must promote the participation of the whole nation, encourage local businesses to take actions, advocate a healthy and civilized concept of consumption, increase corporate social responsibility, and initiatively develop and implement the goals and measures of carbon emissions reduction.
The specific stage of China’s economic development determines that if it cannot upgrade the technology effectively and make use of the low-carbon technologies as soon as possible, it will result in the lock-in effect of a large part of the infrastructure and industrial equipment and lead directly to the significant increase of CO2 emissions. This will impact China as well as the global climate. Therefore, we should learn from South Korea’s international cooperation and environmental diplomatic strategy and establish the strategic diplomacies with neighboring countries through energy and technical cooperation. At present, China has the problem of insufficient incentives in the international transfer and cooperation of low-carbon technology. It is impossible to complete such a task against its own economic effectiveness relying solely on enterprises’ spontaneous behaviors. Therefore, from all stakeholders point of view, the country should give full play to the government’s guiding role in lowcarbon technology transfer and cooperation and provide positive incentives to overcome various obstacles for the private sectors’ participation in international technical cooperation through the joint efforts of the developed and developing countries.
To this end, the Korean government has been trying to increase investment in environmental knowledge education and improve the education system. The main approach is to introduce the contents of environmental protection and ecological ethics related to green growth to the teaching materials of the primary and middle schools and to promote courses of environment and green growth in the middle and high schools. In addition, it also actively guides students to visit the Nature Museum and Science Museum for green growth experiences, thus increasing students’ recognition of the environment and sustainable economic developing concept from the level of the whole society. It also provides a great inspiration to our country. We should commit to achieving the transformation of low-carbon economy in a broad sense, recognize the important role of national education in enhancing the citizens’ environmental awareness and concept of green consumption, thus improving green economy development and environmental diplomacy from the bottom to the top.