2005-2162

Green Growth
Provided by Cheong Wa Dae
President Lee Myung –bak (center) emphasized “it is important to a establish higher goal and try to achieve it. If the goal is lowered, it will be
hard to change the people’s attitude”in the meeting of the Presidential Committee on Green Growth.
President Lee emphasized that the country and
the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
should make joint efforts to fight climate change,
particularly in the areas of renewable energy
and eco-friendly technology.
During the summit, the leaders of ASEAN
praised Korea’s efforts to help East Asia grow in
an eco-friendly fashion, including the East Asia
Climate Partnership, which the Lee administration
announced last year at the G8 Summit.
Under the partnership, Korea will invest $200
million over the next five years in projects to
help Southeast Asia’s emerging economies
reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Land, Transport
and Maritime Affairs has presented programs
focused on energy-efficient urban planning
including new construction and transportation
regulations. New buildings will gradually be
required to use less energy, and so-called “zeroenergy”
construction will be required for all new
buildings beginning in 2025, the ministry said.
This means new buildings will have to supply
their own energy. Such buildings already exist,
making use of renewable energy systems such as
photovoltaic solar power modules on roofs.
Starting in 2010, each building’s total energy
consumption will be regulated and, beginning
in 2012, certificates of energy consumption will
be required as a part of real estate transactions.
Residential buildings will be required by law to
use 20 percent less energy for heating and cooling
by 2012.
Half of
Korea’s social
infrastructure
spending will
go to railroads
by 2020, from
29 percent
this year.
The Land Ministry said that the programs
would help lower buildings’ greenhouse gas
emissions to 31 percent below the levels that
would otherwise be reached in 2020.
But what about the transportation, the primary
source of growth in greenhouse gas emissions?
The ministry said it would increase
investment in railways while reducing investment
in roads.
Accordingly, the nation’s railroad network
will account for 50 percent of spending on total
social overhead capital in 2020 from the current
29 percent, the ministry said, while investment
in roads will decline to 40 percent of the
nation’s spending on total social infrastructure
in 2020 from the current 57.2 percent.
In addition, the ministry promises incentives
to companies that switch from using roads
to railways or maritime transportation for their
shipping, in a pilot program starting next
year.
Research and development for advanced
eco-friendly transportation technologies,
including those for next-generation bullet
trains that can operate at 400 kilometers (248.5
miles) per hour and magnetic levitation trains,
will be more active, the ministry said.
The series of measures will help reduce
greenhouse gas emissions in the transportation
sector by up to 37 percent from estimated 2020
levels, the ministry said, and will save about 7.2
trillion won ($6.21 billion) in energy costs
annually. By Koh So-young
December 2009 korea 37