Common Current and South Korea's High-Growth Low-Carbon Plans

South Korea is planning on an ambitious "High-Growth Low-Carbon" economy aimed at making its clean technology industry and sustainability know-how central to what is the world's largest Green New Deal. Come August I'll be taking the stage in Incheon, South Korea at the Global Environmental Forum to discuss the merits of such a strategy.

Other speakers at the Global Environmental Forum will include a nexus of the greatest institutional, political, scientific and business forces trying to fight global climate change in the midst of a global recession:

• UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon
• California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
• Sir Nicholas Stern (he of the famed Stern Review)
• John Chambers, CEO of Cisco (Think that's a non-sequiter? Check out Cisco's "Connected Cities" and "Vision 2030" initiatives).

South Korea is planning on spending the greatest proportion of its national budget on clean tech development and infrastructure of any developed nation. To provide an idea of proportion, the US stimulus passed in October 2008 provided 11.5 percent for the green economy and the most recent ARRA provided a similar percentage out of the $787 billion total.

South Korea's green portion of its national stimulus passed last year was closer to 90 percent (see slide 32 of 33).

President Lee Myung Bak has allocated 50 trillion won (equal to 3.77 trillion dollars) by 2012 for renewable energy development, water infrastructure and water related technologies so the nation can "take the offensive" in combating climate change while meeting fast-growing global clean tech demand.

I'll be on a panel at the Forum examining "Climate Change and Urban Sustainability" with former EPA chief Christine Whitman. It will be my third tour of South Korea in 18 months. My tours have focused on speaking about how to measure city sustainability best practices with national, university and local officials.