One response to “Building the architecture for green growth”

  1. John Devine

    The article by the Korean president’s representative in the last issue was another load of greenwash. Too bad that you were taken in. But not everyone is so gullible. This is from a recent article in the Financial Times: “South Korea has experienced one of the fastest development trajectories of any nation and has created a grim environmental mess. It is the fastest growing carbon emitter in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. Environmental scientists are tearing their hair out, as Seoul rides rough-shod over international standards and agreements while being feted internationally for its green rhetoric.”

    The billions that South Korea is pumping into what it calls ‘environmental projects’ are in fact funding construction work and tourist resorts, further eroding the eco-systems already battered by rapid industrial growth. As the FT rightly points out, “Much of the Korean countryside has already been savaged by construction and many so-called green projects are just an excuse to lay more tarmac, build hotels and develop wilderness that should be left as animal habitat….South Korea’s continuing land reclamations of fragile wetlands are an environmental disgrace.”

    John Devine