While researching the Beyond the Underpants Gnomes post on the state/local board, I ran across a fascinating document — Seoul, Korea’s announcement of their master plan for tackling global warming. Seoul has committed itselt to the ambitious goal of creducing CO2 emissions 40% by 2030 — and creating 1 million new green jobs doing it. Here’s some examples of how they plan to pull it off.
For starters, Seoul intends to “spearhead” a “green policy paradigm shift” in green city design,
which re-designs not only buildings, transportations and urban area but also the functions of the city reflecting low-carbon, low-energy and resource recovery aspects, and realization on Human Oriented
City which enables people to live on green jobs with higher salaries.
A few details:
We will establish urban planning and development standards considering climate impacts, minimize impenetrable level, add 11km2 of more green space in the city, pursue gradual roof greening at large buildings in the city, and restore 13 streams into eco streams by 2020 to increase urban climate control ability…Transform 10,000 buildings larger than 2,000 m2 into green building:
- Make it mandatory for all new buildings to acquire green building certificates
- Transform all public transportation into green vehicles
- Expand public transportation ridership rate to 70%
- Create 207km long bike-only lanes at main roads to increase bike ridership rate up to 10%…We will promote 100% resource management system that recycles and reuses waste resource repeatedly as long as waste can be re-used as a resource by encouraging industries related to repair & reuse of resources, recovering energy resource from waste, promoting urban mining project, and pursuing maximum use of water resources.
They also plan on harnessing the well-known power of Seoul social movements by creating a “Low-carbon citizen movement for ‘Rational Inconvenience’”:
- Energy saving is regarded as the 5th energy and citizens’ voluntary participation is crucial in cities such as Seoul where consumption account for a major part. Thus citizen movements to endure “rational inconvenience” should be expanded by aggressively promoting activities such as Eco-Mileage, Eco-Drive and Eco-Tour.- To create low-carbon civil society, Seoul will promote various policies, establish educational facilities such as Climate Energy Experience Site and reinforce energy saving educations from primary and elementary school, to transform current Citizens and Netizens (Internet + Citizen) into future Ecotizens.
Seoul doesn’t just plan on doing its part in saving the planet. They also plan on using it to build a strategic economic advantage:
By 2030, invest $2 billion in Green technology R&D and support commercialization.Seoul will invest around total of 2 billion USD (100 million USD for annual average, $200 million for each technology) in research and development for green technologies. Among invested projects, Seoul will continuously support exemplary projects to commercialize them, and will support participating industries, academics and R&D sectors in matching manners to expand the scope of financial resource….
Develop world best GT research network by establishing Magok district as a hub and training talented human resources
- We will establish cooperation system for business, academic and R&Ds for each green technology, and develop the system into world leading research network. We will also strengthen partnership between major large cities and private professional institutions around the world. At the same time Seoul will actively foster talented human resources in green technology field.
- Prepare stable environment for development by providing test beds for ideal planning and creating domestic market, based on road map for purchasing.
- We will promote development of green technologies and create domestic market by preparing test beds for ideal planning to conduct verification test on products developed and by pursuing continuous group purchase. We will also use policy road maps including advance purchase announcement to minimize potential risks from aggressive investment, and create stable environment for investment and development of green technology.
- Subsidize and protect Green Technology related mid-to-small scale businesses and venture startups: For mid-to-small scale businesses and venture startups that have best green technologies, Seoul will support overseas marketing and the process of acquiring and maintaining patents and other intellectual rights. Also Seoul will protect and actively support stabilization of the business through capital loans and trust guarantees.
- Promote greening major industries: We will link industrial New Town with 6 major industries of new growth engine in Seoul, and emphasize on the development of the industries such as new/renewable energy, LED application, Green City, Resource Recovery, Climate Change Adaptation, and IT integrated system. Examples of connecting with new growth engines: Fashion & Design (climate adapting clothes, green design, etc.), Convention (host GT related international conferences, exhibitions, trade fairs in carbon neutral manner), Finance (attract carbon exchange), tourism (eco tourism), R&D (GT), Digital contents (develop contents related to low-carbon green growth)
- We will lead Green Mart movements that some large chain retail stores are promoting voluntarily. We will establish systematical sales environment, product sales and green selling methods and then expand such activities to all large chain retail stores across Seoul
The next time you somebody tells you we can’t afford to really take on global warming because it’ll be too expensive for business, remember Seoul’s plan. If anything, the real danger we face is that U.S. businesses will make the same mistake today that the companies formerly known as the Big 3 made in the 60s and 70s — sitting on their fat asses while their competitors blaze ahead.
