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2023. Dec VOL.669
2023. Dec VOL.669
This year, we have been faced with different forms of climate crisis including extreme heat, heavy rains, and heavy storms. The international community has been working on carbon neutrality for years to address climate issues. We all understand that the key to resolving climate crisis is constant awareness of—and interest in—climate crisis. However, climate crisis is only getting worse. A reporter has been constantly writing stories to bring attention to climate crisis. He is Sang-wook Park, a news reporter at JTBC. “Before I joined JTBC, I worked at the Moroccan Embassy in Korea in 2010. My job was to monitor news on Morocco particularly the latest developments and politics in Morocco, and major news released by official media agencies and to prepare news briefings as well as to assist with other consular services. At that time, Morocco was working on a large-scale renewable energy project. Under the project, solar farms were built on a vast desert area, and electricity generated at the farms were transmitted to Spain via underwater cable in the Mediterranean. Back then, all I knew of renewable energy was the small solar panels installed on the roofs of homes, which I would see on my way to the house of my parents in the countryside to spend holidays with them. Well, when solar panels were a new concept to me, I was so shocked to learn that they were transmitting electricity to another country through underwater cable that I thought I was in the future. That’s how I got to know what energy transition was and became interested in it,” he said.
Later, Park joined JTBC and went through different fields to cover as a journalist. In the process, he covered and wrote stories about major events related to climate change including Nor’easter, heat wave in Europe, Paris Agreement, and the 48th IPCC Session in Songdo, Korea where the IPCC Special Report on the Impact of Global Warming of 1.5°C was unanimously adopted. Then, his first child came along, which made him think about the future his child will be living. This thought led him to commit himself to focusing more on climate change as a father as well as a journalist.
Since August 2022, Park has been writing stories about climate crisis for the section “Earth Report,” a part of the K-water Newsletter “Water, Nature, and People” to help people better understand the impact of climate crisis. His stories were firmly based on various cases and research. Every Monday, Park posts a story in the online column “Sang-woo Park’s Climate 1.5.” He has been posting stories about climate crisis and interviews with environmentalists every single week ever since he started it. This column is probably the only regular media outlet for stories about climate crisis in Korea. Park was recognized with the 2019 Climate Change Journalist Award by the Korea Society of Energy and Climate Change for his efforts and contribution to raising awareness of climate change, followed by the 2021 KMA Administrator’s Commendation, 2022 Journalist Award by the Korea Water Resources Association, and 2023 Korea Green Climate Grand Prize by the National Assembly Forum on Climate Change. In addition, he is the author of “Slow Down Climate Change and Act Quickly,” a school textbook jointly published by the Ministry of Environment and the Ministry of Education, and the youth book on climate change “Wait! Is This All About Human Rights?” In 2022, he put together all his stories on climate change into a book titled “Global Warming 1.5℃: You Can’t Put Off Today.”
“What I can do is just write about it. TV reports are only 2-3 minutes long, which is never enough to talk about climate change. That’s why I ended up writing a series of stories, and each story has about 5,000 to 6,000 characters or approximately 1,200 to 1,500 words , which is still not enough to get all the messages across in a diverse, complicated context. So I ended up writing a book hoping that the stories about climate change, carbon neutrality, and energy transition will reach out to more people, someone who reads the book will take a brief moment to think about these topics, and this climate agenda is no longer a ‘peripheral agenda’ or ‘a problem in a distant future’. I sincerely hope that by reading this book, people embrace climate change as a ‘problem of literally tomorrow’ and ‘a concern that is personally relevant to them’,” he explained. When asked who among all the interviewees he met is the most memorable person in the last four years he has interviewed people, he chose Dr. Cheon-ho Cho, a meteorologist who has offered him so much help and insight. Park was inspired to write his online column by Dr. Cho’s lectures at an educational program offered by the Korea Press Foundation. Deeply impressed by the balanced combination of Dr. Cho’s calm attitude, passion, and insight, Park decided to join in the efforts to change the societal approach to responding to climate change.
Individuals, corporations, and countries being increasingly required to make efforts about climate crisis may seem to be a recent phenomenon, but it is not the case. It was 30 years ago in 1994 that concerns were first raised about advanced countries’ moves of a nature similar to today’s CBAM. The Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade showed specific figures to argue that Korea’s 15 export items including automobiles, petrochemicals, and electronics would be seriously hurt if the EU, US, and Japan would introduce carbon tariffs. In 1998, the Korean government launched the Climate Change Response Team, a pan-government organization chaired by the Prime Minister to respond to the international pressure to reduce GHG emissions. The team can be considered the precursor to the Presidential Committee on Carbon Neutrality & Green Growth. Despite all these efforts, GHG emissions had been increasing until 2018. Park says that if the Climate Change Response Team launched in 1998 had done its job, Korea’s emissions would have turned around years ago like the EU did. The reason Korea’s emissions have continued to increase despite continued efforts and interest in emissions reduction is the “lack of priority.” Even though responding to climate change has become one of the most pressing tasks for countries to stay competitive, climate action often gets put on the backburner in favor of other priorities on the agenda.
Park also talked about how water is as important as GHG emission. “From what perspective do we see water? If we do not value water, biodiversity as well as sustainability and carbon neutrality will eventually be undermined. I’m not talking about national campaigns to raise public awareness. Stable water management is the basic priority particularly when extreme weather events occur more frequently than before. Now, from the very first phase of the water intake and purification process, we need to be conscious of energy efficiency, and it is equally important to manage how water is consumed, including management of rusty water and water pipe ruptures. Instead of focusing only on producing as much renewable energy as we use, we should use less energy. In other words, we need to reduce the amount of energy we use per unit and the amount of carbon emissions per unit.”
Park expressed hope that K-water, as a major public organization leading efforts to manage and use water resources efficiently, takes the initiative in enhancing Korea’s competitiveness in responding to climate change. He also stressed that the best that we as individuals can do is to “make reasonable choices.” In other words, all the small choices we make can make a difference in carbon emissions. For example, you can choose a smart phone that can last longer once charged, drive a vehicle with better gas or electricity mileage, and buy better insulated windows and doors. Park and the rest of us will live in the same future. If we all take climate crisis personally and continue making reasonable choices and making efforts, we can build a future that will be full of new opportunities instead of crises for generations to follow.
