Consultant on Identifying Lessons Learned from the Korean Green Transition

Together with the loss of biodiversity and the increase of pollution, climate change has emerged as a crucial component of the ‘Triple Planetary Crisis.’ In this regard, the transition from the Kyoto Protocol to the Paris Agreement represented a paradigm shift from a top-down form of climate governance founded on legally binding ‘targets and timeframes to a bottom-up approach promoting voluntary commitments through ‘soft reciprocity.’ Due to this paradigm shift and the inertia of the Sustainable Development Goals, global levels of climate commitments have gradually increased over the years. However, as noted in the latest IPCC[1] and Emissions Gap Report[2], the latest submissions of Nationally Declared Contributions do not yet reflect the ambition needed to reach the Paris goal of limiting climate change to 1.5 to 2°C, despite all future scenarios exceeding 1.5°C by 2040. Accordingly, together with the impetus to ‘build back better’ from COVID-19, the Green New Deal has emerged as a policy solution in many countries.

In this vein, the Republic of Korea (ROK) has recently announced its Korean New Deal, which incorporated a Green New Deal as one of its primary components. Through this initiative, the ROK has affirmed its commitment to promote the green transition of infrastructure, low carbon and decentralized energy, and innovation in the green industry. To this end, the ROK is planning to pursue not only stand-alone environmental projects, but also integrated projects incorporating a digital focus.

Having also published a strategy to ‘globalize’ its New Deal, the ROK has declared its intent to support other countries with facilitating similar structural changes. This is important as, despite having the political will to do so, many governments have been unable to formulate their own Green New Deal strategies. As such, the ROK will be strengthening, among other things, its ‘Green New Deal ODA’ by enhancing support for green transitions in developing countries, leading global cooperation on the Green New Deal, and building mutually beneficial partnerships. In this regard, it is worth noting that many of the ROK’s relevant strategic documents specifically mention UNDP as a potential partner organization with whom to undergo joint interventions.

These developments in the ROK’s strategic approach are relevant for UNDP because its Strategic Plan for 2022 to 2025 outlines the need to promote the green and digital transformation of partner countries as one of its three primary drivers of change. Thus, being mandated to share the ROK’s development experience, UNDP Seoul Policy Centre (USPC) is seeking to identify additional opportunities to cooperate with the ROK at both the business unit and corporate level. This builds on prior partnership experiences which involved activities such as facilitating policy discussions on ‘building back better.’

[1] IPCC. 2021. AR6 Climate Change 2021 The Physical Science Basis: Summary for Policymakers. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/#SPM.

[2] UNEP. 2020. Emissions Gap Report 2020. https://www.unep.org/emissions-gap-report-2020.

Objective of the Assignment

This paper will provide an overview of the context upon which multilateral climate action is taking place. This should entail an analysis of recent international processes, which includes international fora such as the UNFCCC Conference of the Parties, OECD DAC commitments[1] as well as national initiatives such as the Green New Deals of other countries. Building on this, the paper will critically analyze how UNDP has sought to contribute to such processes by providing specific reference to relevant corporate interventions, so as to identify country-level demand for relevant policy advice as well as the niche areas upon which new partnerships could be formulated.

Against this backdrop, this paper will describe the ROK’s potential relevance to such initiatives. That is, it will elaborate on the unique value that the ROK’s green transition offers in this regard and the progress made hitherto. Subsequently, it will explain the overall roles and responsibilities of relevant stakeholders, including that of non-state actors such as the private sector.

Following this, this paper will identify green policy solutions in which the ROK possesses a comparative advantage and that may be of interest to countries in the Global South. By doing so, this paper will serve as a reference point for relevant decision-makers, while also potentially informing USPC’s SDG Partnerships (which is its primary modality of knowledge exchange) and UNDP’s institutional partnership with the ROK. As such, USPC seeks to assist partner countries in emulating initiatives similar to that of the ROK, thereby contributing to UNDP’s strategic objective of promoting a green and digital transformation. To this end, the findings of this paper will be presented to UNDP’s Global Policy Network and selected Country Offices at an USPC-facilitated event with countries that are well-positioned to benefit from the lessons learned and can provide valuable lessons based on their own experiences.

Scope of Work:

The consultant is expected to draft a paper that will include components such as but not limited to the following:

• Executive summary
• Brief overview of relevant political processes including that of international fora such as the Conference of the Parties and national discussions on issues such as the Green New Deal
• Critical review of how UNDP is offering support towards such initiatives and a synthesis of country-level demand for relevant policy advice and the niche areas upon which new partnerships could be formulated
• Explanation of the unique value offered by the ROK’s green transition, the progress made hitherto, and the roles and responsibilities of relevant actors
• Detailed overview of three to five policies in which the ROK possesses a comparative advantage and that may be of interest to partner countries in the Global South, along with details such as but not limited to the advantages and disadvantages of such solutions, the context in which they came into being, and issues that may need to be considered when benchmarking these policies in Southern contexts.
• Conclusion and recommendations including that of future research
• References
• Annex