On August 15, Lee Myung-pack announced a new national development strategy, low-carbon green growth, and it became a social issue. After that, the government promoted the Green New Deal (GND) connected with green growth. GND is a project that unifies a hiring policy with green growth, which means lower carbon, cleaner development and reducing energy. Its object is to make environmental and potential jobs. It also means that the government will boost the economy in the short-term, and it will tackle the environmental crisis at the same time.
Toward green Korea, how will Korea change?
  The Green New Deal that the MB government is promoting is a large scale project constituted of 9 core projects and 27 connected projects. This plan will invest 50 trillion won for 4 years including these core projects: the big 4 river recovery, the building of green national information infrastructure, the supply of green cars and clean energy, the use of forest bio-mass and the construction of green homes and green schools.
  The big 4 river recovery, the most stressful project, will try to make banks to prevent floods, make flood control systems, and maintain agricultural reservoirs. The government is planning to make tourist resorts near the reservoirs of the big 4 rivers, which have a graceful view. Also, the land near the river will have art, cultural spaces and a bicycle path. Green-home and green-building projects will help develop the construction techniques of reducing energy in houses and offices, and it will supply 2 million green homes. 20% of lights in public facilities will be replaced by light emitting diodes (LEDs). The supply of green cars and clean energy has a goal to help Korea compete internationally in the green industry. It also has an object to secure the techniques of plug-in hybrids and to develop the techniques of bio-mass.
Only outside is green in the Green New Deal?
  Can the Green New Deal really change Korea? 96% of 960,000 jobs that the Green New Deal will produce are assembly line jobs. That is work which will disappear after finishing the projects. In an overflowing well-educated population, how many people can dig in the field of construction work?
  Also, the importance of 6 projects of the 9 core projects is attached to civil engineering and construction. The government plans to invest only 10% of its total budget in recyclable scrapping, the supply of green car and clean energy, and the building of green national information infrastructure, which are higher valued businesses. As opposed to Korea, America is planning to make 5 million jobs to invest 15 billion dollars in the development of clean energy for ten years.
  The big 4 rivers recovery, a core project, is not expected to help preventing floods or developing the quality of water. Recent flood damage which occurred in Korea does not occur in the big 4 rivers, but in Kangwon-do. Also, improving the quality of water should make the environment of the upper stream better because the pollutants enter the upper stream. However, this project doesn’t do that. Besides, landscaping the river can harm the ecosystem and damage the diversity of its biological world.
  Green growth is the current paradigm we can’t avoid. Joining along with the paradigm is reasonable. However, is the direction of the compass wrong? Our green growth should not be green on the outside, and black in the inside.