Martin Uden

Teaming Up With ‘Flower Boy’ On Climate Change

To mark Blog Action Day today, the British Embassy in Seoul is launching an online climate change campaign on Cyworld (Korean Facebook) with the support of the British Council, and Korean celebrity, Mr Kim Beom.  The campaign aims to raise awareness of the importance of low carbon living and calls for action from world leaders at Copenhagen this December.   As part of the campaign, Mr Kim will visit London in two weeks to film a documentary about what the UK is doing to encourage low carbon lifestyles.  I hope that Koreans will learn lessons about what works (and what doesn’t work) after watching the final product.

Kim Beom, also known throughout Asia as ‘Flower Boy’, is passionate about climate change and committed to showing Koreans what they can do to reduce their carbon footprint.  And it’s important that Korea does act, given the size of its economy and its dependence on carbon fuels.  According to a recent report from the International Energy Agency, Korea is the world’s ninth-largest emitter of greenhouse gases and saw the fastest rise in CO2 emissions per capita of all the OECD countries from 1990 to 2007. 

I hope that our Cyworld campaign and this blog help to persuade Koreans of the urgency of acting to prevent dangerous climate change.   You can also visit our Korean Cyworld site and leave a message for Korean leaders.   And English-speakers can visit the Act on Copenhagen website to pledge support for an ambitious, effective and fair deal at Copenhagen.  Make your voice heard! 

Posted at 09:42 16 October 2009 by Martin Uden  |  Comments[1]

Korean's Midterm Target

Recently the Korean government announced three possible scenarios for carbon dioxide emission reduction targets.  This is a welcome and important development.  Korea is among the first countries in the world to commit to such a target.  I welcome Korea's announcement and believe that this will be a positive catalyst for the upcoming United Nations climate change negotiations in Copenhagen.

To prevent catastrophic climate change all nations need to limit the global average temperature increase to no more than 2 degrees Celsius.  To accomplish this challenging, but vital, goal the total emissions from all countries must be cut to less than half of their 1990 level by 2050.  In the UK we have legally binding targets to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, in the long term by at least 80% on 1990 levels by 2050. To set us on the right track we have short term targets set at 34% reductions by 2020. And it's working as emissions have fallen steadily since 1990 while GDP has increased.

When I have the opportunity to meet Korean Government representatives I continue to support an ambitious mid-term target.  I have been impressed by the current Administration's efforts on low carbon green growth.  A quick transition to a low carbon economy is in all of our interest, and these targets are an important part of that evolution.

Posted at 15:05 15 September 2009 by Martin Uden  |  Comments[0]

Appointing Young Climate Change Ambassadors

It’s always good to meet young people who are passionate about realising their creative ideas. Last week, I was very impressed when meeting a large number of creative, passionate and ambitious young Korean students who are committed to tackling climate change. In the final stage of the British Embassy and British Council’s competition to recruit Young Climate Change Ambassadors, ten student teams competed, having been shortlisted from 380 applications from 51 universities.  All of the students made excellent presentations and it was really hard work for the judging panel to select only three successful teams. It was a particular honour that among the judges was Korea’s woman astronaut, Dr Yi So-youn, who is now also working with the Korean Ministry of the Environment as an Ambassador for work on climate change.

After much deliberation, we agreed that the overall winning team was one from Sogang University, led by Ms Jaeran Choi.  They plan to encourage Koreans to take action to tackle climate change using both online and off-line promotional activities.   Their campaign will include setting up an online community on Naver.com (for non-Koreans, this is a popular Korean online ‘café’) to raise awareness and mobilise people who want to prevent climate change, hold ‘Green Days’ to educate students, and organise and promote public lectures by leading scientists and academics.  They will now be sent to Japan to receive training on how to develop solutions to tackle climate change. They have also been given 1 million Korean Won to spend on their project to tackle climate change.

Our Embassy and the British Council here in Seoul will work closely with all of our Young Climate Change Ambassadors on these campaigns in 2009.

Posted at 16:57 04 March 2009 by Martin Uden  |  Comments[0]

Calling for Young Climate Change Ambassadors!

The British Embassy and British Council have launched a campaign to recruit Young Climate Change Ambassadors to work with us to encourage Koreans to take an active role to tackle climate change. The successful young ambassadors will be sent to Japan to take part in training on how to develop solutions to the problem of climate change. They will also work on British Embassy-funded projects to mobilise Korean students to 'go green' throughout 2009.

I'm delighted to say that Dr Yi So-yeon, the Korean government's own Green Ambassador, will be joining me on the judging panel of this competition. We also have the support of UNEP, Aveda Korea and Korea's Ministry of the Environment. We all share a commitment to preventing dangerous climate change, one of the most serious challenges faced by our planet this century, and I am very much looking forward to working with our Young Green Ambassadors in 2009.

2009 is a crucial year for us ahead of the UN Copenhagen Climate Conference in December. This is the year when we need to agree an ambitious, binding international deal on climate change so that we stand a chance of tackling the threat that it presents to our world. If we don't seize this opportunity to settle on an effective global response to the prospect of accelerating climate change, the problem may soon run out of control, with disastrous consequences.

Posted at 16:56 22 January 2009 by Martin Uden  |  Comments[1]