National climate change governance and lock-in: Insights from Korea's conservative and liberal governments' committees

Abstract

When establishing national climate change response policies, conflicts between various stakeholders may arise. Therefore, we need a collaborative climate change governance to coordinate stakeholders’ opinions. Many countries have formed and operated committee-type governance to respond to climate change. Climate change policies require long-term responses. However, the politicization of climate change issues results in rapid policy changes and policy discontinuities. In Korea, climate change policies are showing differences according to partisan polarization. Past conservative and liberal governments formed committees to respond to climate change. Conservative governments operated the Green Growth Committee, and liberal governments operated the Carbon Neutrality Committee. This study analyzed the impact of changes in the Korean political system on climate change governance. We examined whether the difference in political orientation between liberal and conservative governments affected climate change governance, and if not, what factors prevented the path from changing. No significantly different outcome was found between the governance of the conservative and the liberal governments in response to climate change. The cause was the “lock-in” of climate change policies in Korea. Specifically, the response to climate change in Korea has not changed significantly due to political, industrial, institutional, and diplomatic lock-in.