South Korea’s hydrogen economy program as a case of weak ecological modernization

In January 2019, the South Korean president Moon Jae In announced his plans for the transformation of the South Korean economy into a “hydrogen economy.” This involves the replacement of fossil fuels for the production of energy on a large scale. The government’s plan supports the use of hydrogen fuel cells (HFCs) for industrial and residential energy production and promotes the replacement of vehicles with internal combustion engines that burn fossil fuel by cars that are powered by HFCs. This study is primarily interested in the plans of the South Korean government to facilitate the production of hydrogen for mobile purposes and to promote fuel cell vehicles (FCVs); and it investigates whether this South Korean policy can be considered a case of ecological modernization. Ecological modernization is a concept that has been developed in a European context and was adopted by the European Union as its main principle in environmental policy making. The new South Korean policy is outlined in the government’s Hydrogen Economy Roadmap which specifies the measures that have to be taken to initiate the transformation of the South Korean transport system based on hydrogen and announces several ambitious goals which the government wants to achieve with this program until 2022, 2030, and 2040, respectively. At its center is an effort to build a nationwide network of hydrogen gas stations, to reduce the price of hydrogen by more than half, and to facilitate the purchase of FCVs. It was found that the overall environmental benefits of this program would be meager in the medium-term, but in the long term it could contribute to a considerable reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and of fine dust, depending on the technology that is used to produce hydrogen.