Developmental Environmentalism

Abstract

Why, after fifty years of fossil fuelled "brown growth" and steadfast refusal to join international agreements on carbon reduction did South Korea prioritize "green growth" (GG) as an overarching national initiative in 2008? Our principal aim is to explain Korea's ambitious pursuit of GG since that time. We argue that Koreanstyle environmentalism is best understood as an extension of the long-held philosophy of developmentalism amongst the policy-making elite. We first examine the origins and specify the central tenets of this new philosophy that we term developmental environmentalism. We then discuss the motivations that led the policymakers to embrace developmental environmentalism, and the means by which GG was translated into swift and sustained policy action. While the empirical focus of this article is Korea, we conclude by tentatively proposing an analytical framework that might explain why some countries are more likely than others to initiate a sustained shift towards GG.

Mainstreaming Climate Change into Emerging Donor’s Official Development Assistance: The Case of South Korea

“…Our macro-level analysis finds this nonlinear pattern not only in Korea's ODA budget (Kim and Thurbon, 2015). The Lee administration set up the legal, procedural and institutional governance schemes for green growth such as the Presidential Committee on Green Growth (PCGG) and the National Strategy for Green Growth (2009-2050) (Kalinowski, 2020).…”

“…This differentiates her framework from those of Lafferty and Hovden (2003) or Ranger et al (2014), both of which have divided the outcome of mainstreaming activities into, for example, ‘coordination’ or ‘harmonization,’ without recognizing the unique characteristics and challenges faced at different governance levels. In consideration of the state-driven nature of Korea’s climate policy (Han, 2015) combined with the hierarchical ‘developmental state’ mentality (Kalinowski, 2020; Kim and Thurbon, 2015), Korea’s climate change mainstreaming could be best analysed with this framework that clearly divides governance levels. Second, the indicators suggested in her framework such as ‘donor’s ODA budget’ or ‘changes in project design’ offer scope to measure and compare across timeline for a specific donor country.…”

“…Having enjoyed relatively stable energy prices and high export competitiveness for decades, Korea has historically refrained from advocating for the reduction of fossil fuel consumption, which would inevitably hurt its economic growth prospects. The economic recession of 2008-2009, combined with spikes in international energy prices, however, prompted the Korean government to seek an alternative growth path rooted in the belief that economic growth and environmental sustainability could go hand in hand (Kim and Thurbon, 2015). Climate change strategies have since then become industrial upgrading strategies, framed around the promotion of key technologies and industries that are viewed as providing the growth engine for the next stage of Korea's development, as export platforms and means to reduce carbon emissions (Choi and In, 2021).…”

New Developmentalism and the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism: Policy Options for the Global South

“…Although new developmentalism is considerably more evident in newly developed countries, such as South Korea (Kim & Thurbon, 2015), Japan (Harrel & Haddad, 2021), and Singapore (Dent, 2017) Carbon pricing is loosely defined as an instrument that "captures the external costs of GHG emissions and ties them to From this section, it can be inferred that implementing carbon pricing would not only serve to overstep the CBAM, but also help countries to reduce their emissions and fulfil their climate commitments. In the following section, this article looks at how the Global South countries have been using their state-capacities in advancing their growth needs aligned with the new sustainable development agenda.…”

Sustainability of a Policy Instrument: Rethinking the Renewable Portfolio Standard in South Korea

“…However, the domestic power pricing system was not efficient, and this put an economic burden on the Electric Power Industry Basis Fund. Another reason was the desire to promote the efficient growth of the renewable energy industry and its production size [46]. The proportion of new and renewable energy in terms of overall primary energy in the FIT implementation period grew by 1.64%, from 1.1% to 2.74% [47]; this result was not sufficient compared to major countries like Germany, Japan, and Northern European countries.…”