“The Earth is now in danger.”
Global warming caused by greenhouse gases emitted during industrialization now poses a threat even to the very nexus of life, from water to energy to food resources.”
These are the words of President Lee Myung-bak in an exclusive article contributed to The Korea Times as a conclusion to the newspaper’s 50-part series themed “Earth in Danger.”
“Accelerated climate change adds to the sharp increase of disasters and the ensuing damage, the rapid expansion of desertification and the reduction in biodiversity on a daily basis,” he continued.
“The conclusion I arrived at after much hard thought was that we should not pass on an Earth in danger to our posterity.
Novel ways of thinking and behavior are needed. We should choose a new path that will ensure sustainable prosperity and safety for future generations,” he said.
President Lee agreed to make the contribution to the six-month series — it has been running in the Tuesday and Friday editions of The Korea Times for six months — to emphasize the importance of green growth.
As part of efforts to realize his goals, the Presidential Committee on Green Growth was launched to facilitate collaboration in deliberating and coordinating various green growth policies across ministries and agencies at the government level.
As such, the administration prepared the legal and institutional groundwork as well as the framework for putting green growth, the new paradigm for national progress, into practice.
“First of all, green growth is changing the economic landscape.” “Green industries are emerging as a new growth engine.
Investments by private businesses in green industries, including new and renewable energy, have skyrocketed every year. As a consequence, the green industry is growing rapidly, and the export of green products is rising sharply,” noted the President, who was long an executive in the engineering and construction industry.
“An increasing number of businesses are putting green management into practice. The number of businesses that practice low carbon and environment- friendly management principles is on the rise. In businesses, advocating green management is now establishing itself as a marketing trend that is the most effective in appealing to consumers,” he added in the article.
“Green buildings and green transportation systems are also on the increase. The construction boom of energy-saving green buildings in both public and private sectors is spreading all over the nation.
“An eco-friendly transition in the transportation system from expressways to high-speed railroads is taking place. The era of electric automobiles is also dawning,” Lee explained.
However, he said, no matter how successful Korea’s transition to a green way of life is, green growth here alone does not mean much.
