South Korea's urban green energy strategies: Policy framework and local responses under the green growth

Abstract

Environmental and energy problems confronting South Korea brought a paradigm shift in the urban development toward “low-carbon green city” since the declaration of “Green Growth Strategy” in 2008. The South Korean governments set the goal to increase urban energy self-sufficiency through renewable energy generation and implemented various urban energy projects. However, the outcome of those urban green energy projects showed a varying degree of success. While the top-down approach led by the government facilitated the spread of urban green energy strategies in a short period of time, it also showed some drawbacks, such as the gap of willingness between the central government and the local governments and low level of community involvement. Although the importance of citizen participation in the transition to urban energy self-sufficiency has been emphasized in a rhetoric, energy projects that residents played a key role were rare in Korea. The urban energy transition in the low carbon green city projects needs to be supplemented by reinforced bottom-up approaches with the momentum from local governments as well as active citizen participation during the planning and implementation process.