Slow life is good life. That?s the latest mantra being chanted top-down across South Korea, with a unified force that would be more familiar to China than to India. It signals a surprising policy shift for a country that?barring a late nineties blip?has been a byword for the Asian growth miracle. As a side effect of exemplary growth, carbon emissions doubled during 1990-2005, the fastest among OECD members. Admitted into this rich countries? club in 1996, South Korea not only stands on the border between developing and developed worlds, but also rides the line that takes Kyoto to Copenhagen. With the latter destination looking dead, our post-crisis world is seeing the emergence of new orthodoxies. South Korea?s slow life moves exemplify this shift?where countries have little appetite for signing on to binding treaties, but where national investments in green industry look like an excellent yardstick for separating the big boys from the wannabes.
There is a pretty stream that flows through Seoul today. It?s called Cheonggyecheon. And it?s President Lee Myung-bak?whom the US President will meet today as he wraps up the last leg of his first Asian tour?who is credited for restoring this picturesque miracle to the city?s lungs and landscape. This was back when he was the mayor of Seoul, and many say that this was critical to his presidential victory. But don?t let the pretty name fool you. Don?t get distracted by wistful slogans. Reclaiming an ancient stream off an expressway was more than a romantic endeavour; it was an engineering feat. All the slick, suited and booted young Koreans you see walking along the stream at sunset echoing the slow life mantra, they aren?t really taking things easy either. Pali, pali, they are still muttering. Hurry, hurry.
The country?s $38 billion stimulus package included an 80% green component. Critics call such claims ?greenwashing?, accusing the government of veiling its growth aspirations behind better colours. Critics also point to CO2 emissions as well as the use of energy, pesticides, fertilisers et al as being among the highest in the world. This is also true. As is the fact that the government sees going green fundamentally within the fabric of growing bigger. But South Korea isn?t required to commit to emission-reduction targets under the Kyoto protocol. Such commitments are as much in good faith as India?s. And ahead of the Barack Obama visit, the Lee government has committed to a 30% emissions reduction from business-as-usual levels by 2020. This is in sharp contrast to a) Obama dropping the ball on Copenhagen, and b) African nations insisting on developed countries? commitments before making any of their own.
Over the next few years, Lee?s government envisages spending around $100 billion on green growth. It?s going to put a good kick behind the slow life mantra on every front?energy efficiency, renewables, hybrid cars and so on. If the world?s fifth-largest automaker gets behind green cars, that will inevitably have a big impact. If the country delivers the technological leaps that it?s promising, we?ll all be grateful and its growth will be good, too. Or take nuclear power, where South Korea has just entered the global race to build power plants by bidding against established French giant Areva for a UAE contract. The country itself depends on nuclear power for 40% of its energy supply.
Speaking of nuclear going-ons, one must, of course, address North Korea. As will Obama later today. The twentieth anniversary of the Berlin Wall?s fall has drawn particular attention to this ultimate bastion of the Cold War. Obama is bound to take the occasion to ask Pyongyang to play nice. For us in India, the only way to imagine the North-South d?tente is to envisage the India-Pakistan border coming down. This is obviously inconceivable. But South Koreans think the unthinkable. Of the 500 promises that Obama allegedly made during his election campaign, reconciling the North and the South may have been one. People in Seoul believed this, anyway. But then so many people also believed that Obama would bring the US aboard Kyoto. Instead, he has yodelled the song of its demise. So, those hoping that he would bring Seoul closer to Pyongyang have reason to feel disheartened today.
Here?s the thing though, irrespective of what Obama says, South Korea looks set to conquer the green frontier. What one wonders in passing is why India hasn?t looked to this miracle story as an example, why Beijing obsesses us and Seoul leaves us unmoved. Perhaps it?s a question of character. Seoul?s is too singular. The very feature that makes it possible for a mantra to spread at supersonic speed, also underlines a deep difference with India. Slow life is good life, says the Centre, and so say the masses. Debate is scarce. Because as the underlying hymn goes, we are a one people nation. Ethnic homogeneity of a scale unthinkable in India, the US or even China rules the roost.
?renuka.bisht@expressindia.com
