This paper explains why the Republic of Korea adopted green growth as a new national development strategy and details how it has been implemented by the government. The author suggests that Korea adopted green growth as a new economic growth paradigm to create new growth engines and jobs through green technology and the greening of industries. The green growth path was seen as essential not just for sustainable economic growth, but also to improve the quality of life and well-being of the Korean people. The paper also details how green growth was implemented by the Korean government; draws together key outcomes to date from Korea’s green growth policy; and suggests lessons learnt which could be applied to other countries.
This paper is the first from the Korea Green Growth Partnership and World Bank's new "Green Growth in Action, Knoweldge Note Series".
This book provides a much needed look at the impact of climate change on the poor. It convincingly demonstrates that issues of poverty and livelihoods must be integrated into climate change policies to help achieve sustainable development gains. The high incidence of natural disasters, growing urbanization, and increased water scarcity combined with the acute impact of these phenomena on the poor and vulnerable complicates the already enormous challenge of reducing poverty and inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean. This publication lays bare the social implications of climate change and equips the reader with a framework for understanding how climate change and climate variability affect livelihoods, poverty, income, health, and migration. These scenarios call for greater efforts to incorporate poverty, livelihood, and social considerations into climate change adaptation and mitigation policies. Purposefully targeted policies and investments can support economic growth and poverty reduction efforts and help achieve sustainable development goals. In other words, good climate change adaptation policies can also be good development policies.
Transport is a fast growing sector. A steadily increasing motorization along with urbanization is a trend that can be observed in most developing countries. This and the oil dependence of the transport sector leads to considerable growth rates of carbon emissions. Action to stop this trend is urgently needed. This paper shows how national and/or urban low-carbon transportation policies could help countries to win the battle and achieve a smart, sustainable economic growth while at the same time stabilizing and later reducing transport emissions. Sustainable Development Policies and Measures in the transport sector include a variety of co-benefits, e.g. reduced air pollution, social equity and economic development. In the context of the global economic crisis such measures promote economic growth, social stability and also can be implemented at reasonable costs.
This publication presents an overview of the status of tourism in Small Island Developing States (SIDS), while providing evidence of the key importance it has for the sustainable development of many islands and for the achievement of the MDGs. It draws together and updates a wide range of evidence on tourism performance and impacts and on the factors affecting the future development of the sector in SIDS, and provides policy orientations, guidelines and other tools to the various tourism stakeholders in SIDS on how to address these challenges and develop and manage tourism in a sustainable manner for the benefit of their population.
China and India are heavily dependent on high-carbon fossil fuels. This article elaborates the implications of low-carbon energy transitions in the two countries, which can mitigate their serious contribution to climate change while allowing economic growth. Three modelling case studies are presented: for the Chinese power sector, the economy of Beijing and rural Indian households without access to electricity. They demonstrate a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and energy use, while costs are likely to increase. Financial assistance and technology transfer will be needed to support their efforts towards a climate-friendly lowcarbon economy.
This summary was prepared by Eldis.