Chaebols may hinder Green New Deal progress

South Korea’s conglomerates do not appear enthusiastic about curtailing carbon emissions, and their dominance crowds out more innovative contributors

South Korea’s Green New Deal risks being derailed by legacy players keen to use the long timescale required to build a hydrogen economy as a way of postponing meaningful action on emissions. The industrial establishment favours the hydrogen economy option due to the extended period that would be needed to build it, says Melissa Brown, director of energy finance studies, Asia at research body the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis in Hong Kong. South Korea’s state-controlled power companies are “inherently conservative and backward looking”, she says. President Moon Jae-in’s mandate for reform was strengthened by an absolute majority for the ruling Democratic Party in parli