Cutting through the Conflicting Images of East Asia’s Green Energy Shift

Abstract In this chapter we outline the primary objectives of our book: to explain Northeast Asia’s distinctive pattern of performance in the green energy shift from the mid-2000s to the present, and to anticipate the most likely trajectory of that shift into the future. We then articulate our understanding of the green energy transition as a techno-economic shift embodying the Schumpeterian dynamic of ‘creative-destruction’ and outline the four key questions that frame our analysis of East Asia’s green energy shift. An outline of our novel conceptual and analytical approach then follows, centred on the idea of developmental environmentalism as an elite mindset, a political legitimation strategy, and a distinctive policy approach. Finally, we explain the value added of an approach centred on developmental environmentalism, especially vis-à-vis existing approaches centred on authoritarian environmentalism. We conclude by outlining the various ways in which East Asia’s approach to greening differs from that of the West.