This report on the Korean Strategy for Green Growth and its implementation in urban areas assesses the contributions of sub-national governments to Korea's National Strategy for Green Growth and identifies the main challenges for effective implementation at the local level. Korea's economy, heavily reliant on foreign exports, was hard hit by the recent global financial crisis. Since the 1970s, Korea has become one of the most energy-intensive economies in the OECD area, thanks to higher living standards, rapid urbanisation and an expanding industrial sector. As a result, the country's greenhouse gas emissions almost doubled between 1990 and 2005, registering the highest growth rate in the OECD area. It is in this context of rapid urbanisation and unprecedented resource consumption and environmental pressures that the report focuses on the role of urban areas within Korea's National Strategy for Green Growth. The effectiveness of Korea's green growth agenda, which has been driven by a central government vision and strategy, will largely hinge on the contribution of urban areas toward more sustainable, greener growth. Through the lens of a multilevel governance framework, an assessment of green growth policies in Korean cities helps to identify concrete strategies for delivering a coherent policy message and improving governance across all levels of government, with particular recommendations in terms of policy, funding, technical capacity and information sharing.
