Policy-makers across East Asia (China, Korea, Japan, and Taiwan) recognize that their manufacturing-based economies rely on vast amounts of reliable and affordable electricity. They are well aware of the environmental and economic limits for future growth that a “brown growth” model (based on the exploitation of cheap and plentiful fossil fuels) can deliver, especially given that all these countries are net importers (not producers) of fossil fuels. Indeed, from the perspective of high-level Korean officials in the former Presidential Committee on Green Growth (now the Prime Ministerial Committee on Green Growth), green growth represents an opportunity to pursue both environmental and economic goals without necessitating a trade-off in the pursuit of one for the other. By investing in and exporting renewable energy technologies, East Asian countries are attempting to secure their energy security (in a world of declining sources of fossil fuels) and techno-economic competitiveness, in addition to environmental protection.

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