Korea’s green growth experience

Green growth offers opportunities to address the unprecedented development challenges of our age. It strives to provide innovative solutions that integrate economic growth, environmental sustainability, and social inclusiveness. As the global momentum for green growth accelerates, the Republic of Korea (ROK) has boldly pursued this path to address fossil fuel dependency, economic slowdown, and climate change. By minimizing the tradeoffs and maximizing the synergies of greening the economy, the ROK adopted green growth as a national development strategy under the Lee Myung-bak administration. Being the only country so far that has embraced green growth at a scale and speed never been demonstrated elsewhere, the ROK’s green growth experience thus deserves an in-depth analysis. Moreover, the fact that the ROK’s development path is relevant to both developed and developing countries, given its rags-to-riches economic success, makes it case worth examining.