Gwangju City Discusses Cooperation Plans on Energy and Environmental Issues with Green Growth Committee

Mayor Lee Yong-seop: "Promoting Sustainable Green Growth Policies Through Close Cooperation"

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Seon-gang] Gwangju Metropolitan City and the Green Growth Committee under the Office for Government Policy Coordination discussed joint responses and cooperation plans for green growth, including energy and environmental issues.

On the 15th, Gwangju announced that eight committee members, including Kim Jeong-wook, chairman of the Green Growth Committee, and five government officials, including Kim Jin-nam, deputy head of the Green Growth Support Group of the Office for Government Policy Coordination, visited Gwangju to attend a meeting and policy briefing session.

The Green Growth Committee, co-chaired by Prime Minister Jeong Seyeon and Seoul National University Professor Kim Jeong-wook, is a government committee under the Office for Government Policy Coordination composed of 43 ministers from central government departments and private members. It performs functions such as setting the basic direction and strategic planning of national green growth policies, responding to climate change, and establishing energy transition policies.

This visit was the first case of a local government visit aimed at exploring cooperation methods between the central government and local governments after Gwangju announced the ‘Gwangju Energy Artificial Intelligence (AI) Promotion Plan’ at the Green Growth Subcommittee in November last year and was recognized as a leading city in energy transition policy.

On the day, Mayor Lee Yong-seop and the Green Growth Committee held a meeting to share policies and strategies for joint responses to energy and environmental issues and to seek cooperation plans.

At the policy briefing session held in the city hall’s medium conference room, Song Yong-su, head of the city’s Environmental Policy Division, gave a keynote presentation on Gwangju’s policies under the theme of ‘Five-Year Green Growth Plan for Realizing a Low-Carbon City Leading Green Growth,’ and Oh Dong-kyo, head of the city’s Energy Industry Division, presented the ‘Energy Transition Plan Based on Innovation and Communication to Open the Future Energy Era.’

Following this, the committee members and Gwangju discussed the development direction of green growth, including energy and environmental issues and climate change, and cooperation plans between the government and local governments.

At the policy briefing session, committee members showed great interest in Gwangju’s ‘citizen-led energy decentralization realization’ aspects, such as the promotion of citizen-participatory renewable energy projects in partnership with 36 civic organizations and profit-sharing through citizen cooperative models.

In the afternoon, they visited the Gwangju Environment Corporation to tour the energy self-sufficiency project site, which recycles a total of 9,832,386 N㎥ (approximately 3.7 billion KRW worth) of digester gas annually discharged from the No. 1 sewage treatment plant, and then visited the advanced company InCell Co., Ltd. to inspect lithium-ion battery energy storage system (ESS) manufacturing facilities.

Kim Jeong-wook, chairman of the Green Growth Committee, said, “Gwangju has enacted ordinances related to renewable energy, implemented various policies, and set an example nationwide by creating and publicly disclosing a greenhouse gas map, so we chose Gwangju as the first local government visit. We hope Gwangju’s successful model will spread nationwide, and the committee will actively support where needed.”

Mayor Lee Yong-seop said, “Gwangju launched the Energy Policy Committee on the 7th and operates a Climate Environment Center, proactively responding to future energy transition linked with artificial intelligence (AI) convergence technology. We will continue to implement sustainable green growth policies through close cooperation with the committee.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.