- Why has mitigation always remained a “supplementary tool”?
- Discourse has moved ahead, but policy and finance have failed to keep pace
- The time has come to redefine international mitigation as a national strategy
Why has mitigation always been discussed only as a “supplementary tool”?
Discussions surrounding international mitigation projects have long remained centered on one question: “How much mitigation outcome can be secured overseas?”
This question reflects the policy premise that international mitigation projects have been understood as a supplementary means of achieving the national greenhouse gas reduction target, or NDC. As the social demand that domestic industrial and power sectors must prioritize their own reduction efforts, along with concerns raised by civil society, has been consistently reflected in the policy process, international mitigation has come to be positioned as a secondary option.
However, the international environment has already changed significantly. As emerging and developing countries are also assigned national reduction targets, they no longer view international mitigation simply as a transaction for transferring mitigation outcomes. Today, international mitigation is becoming a means of cooperation selected not by the volume of reductions it generates, but by what it leaves behind in a country’s industrial, energy, and financial structures.
In addition, as major countries such as Japan, the European Union, Switzerland, and Singapore approach international mitigation projects by mobilizing government-level strategies and financing, international mitigation is shifting into a policy arena marked by full-fledged competition. The question must now change. It is no longer “how much can be secured,” but “what kind of structure will remain.”Discourse has moved ahead, but policy has not kept pace
The signing ceremony of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) among VERYWORDS Co., Ltd., the Cambodian Ministry of Environment, and GGGI Cambodia, held in Phnom Penh, Cambodia on February 7, 2025, to promote the deployment of eco-friendly electric two-wheelers and contribute to the achievement of South Korea’s greenhouse gas reduction target. (Photo = VERYWORDS)
As discussed earlier, an international mitigation project is not a single isolated project. It can create an ecosystem that combines manufacturing, operations, finance, and services. This can be referred to as an “ecosystem-type international mitigation project.”
However, its limitations are also clear. This model is possible, but it is too slow and too heavy. It can take years from the planning of Official Development Assistance, or ODA, to the approval of an international mitigation project. Companies must invest enormous capital and patience throughout that process. The essence of the problem is not the capacity of individual companies. It lies in the structural misalignment in which ODA, international mitigation, policy finance, and private investment each operate according to their own logic and evaluation systems.
The discourse has already expanded international mitigation into a tool of industrial, diplomatic, and economic strategy. Yet actual policy and financial systems still treat it within the narrow framework of a supplementary mitigation tool. Unless this gap is resolved, international mitigation projects will remain exceptional challenges undertaken by pioneering companies.
What changes when international mitigation is redefined as a national strategy
Redefining international mitigation projects as a national strategy is not a declaration that the country will simply reduce more emissions. It is a decision by the state to design a structure through which domestic SMEs and venture companies can expand overseas in the process of generating mitigation outcomes. Once the government sets the direction, companies become not pioneers, but expanders. At that point, the following changes occur simultaneously.
First, ODA becomes a runway, not merely aid. ODA should be redesigned not as support for completing a single project, but as a runway that leads to international mitigation and private investment. The key is to design ODA from the planning stage with a clear premise that it will be connected to international mitigation and private investment. For example, if energy facilities are combined with health-sector ODA to reduce operating costs and link mitigation outcomes and operating revenue to financing, aid facilities can be transformed into self-sustaining ecosystems.
Second, policy finance and climate funds begin to look at ecosystems, not individual projects. In the early stages of ecosystem-type international mitigation projects, uncertainty is greater than profitability. Manufacturing, infrastructure, platforms, finance, and services do not operate as fragmented businesses, but as one integrated structure. However, current financial evaluation systems fail to capture this structure and instead apply standards centered on past financial statements and collateral.
At this point, if policy finance and public climate finance play an anchor role in forming ecosystems with high initial risk, that risk can be shared, and the growth phase can be opened to private investment.
Third, diplomatic cooperation aligns institutions. For developing-country governments to cooperate on international mitigation projects, they need trust that such projects will contribute to their own industrial and institutional development. Without government-to-government cooperation, project expansion is difficult. When the government designs a cooperative structure, administrative delays can be reduced and larger-scale projects become possible. On that foundation, energy, transport, finance, and services can be combined, allowing the ecosystem to expand.
The role of the government is to create an environment in which international mitigation can be rapidly implemented, integrated, and expanded through intergovernmental cooperation.
Fourth, performance indicators determine strategy. Until now, the performance of international mitigation, ODA, and climate finance projects has mainly been managed through quantitative indicators such as the number of projects, budget execution, and greenhouse gas reductions. However, these indicators have clear limitations when international mitigation projects are viewed as a strategy for expanding economic territory. Performance indicators must shift from a focus on mitigation volume to a focus on “structural accumulation.”
How many domestic companies, especially SMEs and venture companies, participated in this project? How many cities and countries were connected through it? What scale of overseas revenue, employment, and reinvestment was generated in the process? What kinds of industrial, service, data, and financial ecosystems were newly formed locally? How easily can this structure be replicated and expanded to other countries or cities? These indicators are what change the priorities of policy and finance.
An e-mobility ecosystem operating in everyday life. (Photo = VERYWORDS)
Final conclusion: The time for choice
International mitigation is not a technical matter of increasing the volume of reductions. It is a matter of national strategic choice. If international mitigation remains a supplementary tool of environmental policy, projects will remain individual initiatives pursued each year according to budgets and negotiations, leaving behind only mitigation records. Industrial capacity, finance, data, and operational experience will not accumulate, and corporate overseas expansion will remain limited to one-off cases.
By contrast, if international mitigation is positioned as a central pillar of a strategy to expand economic territory, a continuous structure can be formed, beginning with ODA and extending to finance, industry, and corporate overseas expansion. Mitigation becomes the starting point, while the institutions, infrastructure, operational experience, and networks created in the process expand into subsequent projects. International mitigation then becomes established as a repeatable method of building ecosystems.
Unless international mitigation is adopted as a national strategy, these changes will be difficult to institutionalize. Moreover, this choice does not require new resources. South Korea already has ODA, climate funds, policy finance, companies with technology, and cases that have been verified overseas. What is lacking is not the means, but direction and priority.
The Cambodia case is not an exceptional success story. It is a small-scale example showing what a repeatable structure can look like when a strategy is in place. If international mitigation projects are designed as a national strategy, such structures will not remain the experience of a specific company, but will spread across multiple countries and industries.
Mitigation is recorded in numbers, but strategy remains as structure. Only on that structure can South Korea’s economic territory and the overseas expansion of its SMEs and venture companies be sustained. The time for choice has already begun.
Kim Sung-woo, CEO of VERYWORDS Co., Ltd.
Source | NewsTomato, February 12, 2026
Original article | https://www.newstomato.com/ReadNews.aspx?no=1291084&inflow=N
댓글 남기기