South Korea¡¯s plan to spend $84 billion in the next five years on improving energy efficiency may boost growth in Asia¡¯s fourth-largest economy by 4 percent annually and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions within two years.

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Going green will open new markets and cut carbon emissions,¡± Woo Ki Jong, 52, secretary general of the Presidential Committee on Green Growth, said in an interview in Seoul yesterday. Developing technologies for solar and wind power as well as energy-saving cars and lighting will help diversify exports, currently led by semiconductors, mobile phones, automobiles and ships, he said.

South Korea unveiled its so-called ¡°green¡± spending package on July 6, joining the U.S. and China in promoting pollution-reducing technologies before global talks in December aimed at reaching a new climate-change treaty. The funds will be made available by curbing state spending on ¡°wasteful¡± ventures, and won¡¯t require tax increases, Woo said.

¡°There will be a ripple effect on related industries,¡± Park Deog Bae, senior research fellow at Hyundai Research Institute, said by telephone in Seoul. ¡°Investing in the green industry may create more jobs than just building roads, which is the usual way governments stimulate growth.¡±

The government plans to invest 107 trillion won ($84 billion) by 2013 to develop renewable energy technologies and create as many as 1.8 million jobs. South Korea¡¯s economy expanded 0.1 percent in the first quarter from the previous three months, avoiding a recession because of state spending and reduced borrowing costs.

¡°We will invest 17.5 trillion won this year and increase spending by 10 percent a year,¡± Woo said. ¡°We will also attract local and foreign investors.¡±

Carbon Emissions

Carbon emissions by South Korea, the world¡¯s 10th-biggest producer of greenhouse gases, will fall after peaking either this year or next as the spending package takes effect, Woo said.

Greenhouse-gas emissions rose to 599.5 million metric tons in 2006 from 594.4 million tons the previous year, the Ministry of Knowledge Economy said in February. That¡¯s about double the 298.1 million tons produced in 1990.

U.S. President Barack Obama has pledged to spend $150 billion over 10 years to fight climate change. China will invest about $15 billion to more than double its wind power capacity by 2010 from 2008 and subsidize solar generation, targeting a fivefold increase in capacity to produce electricity from sunlight by 2020.

Rich nations should take the lead in curbing emissions and impose more output limits, Woo said. South Korea will set its medium-term emissions-reduction target by this year, he said.

The European Union is already implementing policies to lower emissions by 20 percent by 2020. Obama¡¯s February budget plan assumed a 14 percent reduction of U.S. emissions by the end of the next decade from 2005, and 83 percent by 2050.

South Korea isn¡¯t bound by the Kyoto treaty to stem climate change, which requires industrialized nations to trim emissions by about 5 percent from 1990 through 2012.