E4-EMERGY EVALUATION OF SOUTH KOREA’S SUSTAINABILITY PROGRESSION SINCE SIGNING THE KYOTO PROTOCOL by Hun Park A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the University of Delaware in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Energy and Environmental Policy Fall 2015 © 2015 Hun Park All Rights Reserved ProQuest Number: 10014786 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. ProQuest 10014786 Published by ProQuest LLC (2016). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, MI 48106 - 1346 E4-EMERGY EVALUATION OF SOUTH KOREA’S SUSTAINABILITY PROGRESSION SINCE SIGNING THE KYOTO PROTOCOL by Hun Park Approved: __________________________________________________________ John Byrne, Ph.D. Director of the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Approved: __________________________________________________________ George H. Watson, Ph.D. Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Approved: __________________________________________________________ Ann L. Ardis, Ph.D. Interim Vice Provost for Graduate and Professional Education I certify that I have read this dissertation and that in my opinion it meets the academic and professional standard required by the University as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Signed: __________________________________________________________ Young-Doo Wang, Ph.D. Professor in charge of dissertation I certify that I have read this dissertation and that in my opinion it meets the academic and professional standard required by the University as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Signed: __________________________________________________________ Lado Kurdgelashvili, Ph.D. Member of dissertation committee I certify that I have read this dissertation and that in my opinion it meets the academic and professional standard required by the University as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Signed: __________________________________________________________ Daniel E. Campbell, Ph.D. Member of dissertation committee I certify that I have read this dissertation and that in my opinion it meets the academic and professional standard required by the University as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Signed: __________________________________________________________ Jung-Min Yu, Ph.D. Member of dissertation committee ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Above all, I want to thank Dr. Wang, my teacher and advisor. He has been supportive of me all through my years in the PhD program. Before I settled with the research questions that lead to this study, I had changed my topic a few times. But Dr. Wang always encouraged me to pursue my research interest. I cannot express my gratitude to Dr. Campbell enough. Had it not been for his help, I would never have completed the emergy evaluation for the study. In addition, although he is one of the world’s foremost experts in energy systems theory, Dr. Campbell had been attentive to my naïve questions and smallest misunderstandings. Dr. Yu’s comments have polished my dissertation a lot. Because he understands the status quo of South Korea’s sustainability far better than I do, I could adjust my discussion of the results and policy implications to reflect the raw reality of my home country. It was Dr. Kurdgelashvili who found many mistakes in the draft which even I felt uncomfortable with but couldn’t correct properly. His suggestions from different perspectives have upgraded the dissertation to be more scientific. I apologize to every one of my friends and colleagues who feels unduly ignored. But I’ll personally thank you one by one, however long it takes. Lastly, I am immensely indebted to my extended family members. I love you. I love you. I love you. I’ll be all yours through the rest of my life. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES ......................................................................................................... x LIST OF FIGURES ...................................................................................................... xii LIST OF ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS .................................................... xiv ABSTRACT .............................................................................................................. xviii Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................. 1 1.1 Problem Statement ..................................................................................... 1 1.1.1 History of integration between climate policies and national sustainable development strategies since signing the Kyoto Protocol .......................................................................................... 1 1.1.2 South Korea’s growth-oriented economic policies ....................... 5 1.1.3 South Korea’s energy system heavily depends on imported non-renewable energy ................................................................... 8 1.1.4 South Korea’s environmental performance ................................. 11 1.1.5 South Korea’s equity impeded by unsustainable economic activities and energy consumption .............................................. 14 1.1.6 Problems of the conventional energy accounting system in South Korea ................................................................................. 16 1.2 Research Objectives and Research Questions ......................................... 20 1.2.1 Research objectives ..................................................................... 20 1.2.2 Research questions ...................................................................... 21 1.2.2.1 Finding a suitable energy-based accounting system (e.g., “emergy”) to better assess South Korea’s energy sustainability than is possible using the conventional means. ..................................................... 21 1.2.2.2 Further developing the alternative energy accounting system in order to additionally account for the equity dimension and temporal changes in the energy system. .......................................................................... 22 1.2.2.3 Assessing South Korea’s integrated sustainability in terms of the alternative energy accounting system, and laying out policy implications. .............................. 22 2 LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ................ 24 v 2.1 Energy Systems Theory and Emergy Accounting ................................... 24 2.1.1 Emergy Systems Language symbols and diagrams ..................... 25 2.1.2 Empower and total global emergy inflow ................................... 27 2.1.3 Unit Emergy Values .................................................................... 28 2.1.3.1 Transformity ................................................................. 28 2.1.3.2 Specific emergy ............................................................ 29 2.1.4 An illustrated explanation of key terms in emergy accounting ... 29 2.1.5 Emergy accounting procedure ..................................................... 31 2.2 Pros and Cons of Emergy Analysis ......................................................... 35 2.2.1 Advantage of emergy compared to the conventional energy accounting system ....................................................................... 35 2.2.1.1 More information about how energy production and consumption is related to the society and environment of the country .......................................... 35 2.2.1.2 Compliance with thermodynamic principles ................ 37 2.2.2 Weak points of emergy analysis as an alternative energy accounting method ....................................................................... 37 2.2.2.1 Less used information on intragenerational equity ...... 37 2.2.2.2 Difficulties to develop a time series database .............. 37 2.3 Equity Issues in Energy Accounting ....................................................... 38 2.4 Emergy Assessment of Countries, Sub-National Entities, and Cities ..... 40 2.4.1 National emergy analysis ............................................................ 41 2.4.2 Sub-national-level emergy analysis ............................................. 45 2.4.3 Emergy analysis of megacities .................................................... 48 2.5 Emergy Application in South Korea ....................................................... 51 2.5.1 National emergy analysis ............................................................ 51 2.5.2 Sub-national- and city-level emergy analysis .............................. 52 2.6 Theoretical Framework ........................................................................... 53 3 DATA AND METHODOLOGY: E4-EMERGY EVALUATION ................. 58 3.1 Raw Data Collection on Energy and Material Storage and Flows .......... 58 vi 3.2 Parameters (Unit Emergy Values) Collection ......................................... 60 3.3 Basic Emergy Analysis of South Korea .................................................. 60 3.3.1 Drawing a systems diagram ........................................................