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Executive Summary

 
The two Koreas’ divergent growth and development paths resulting from political-economic or socioeconomic differences eventually have led to differences in environmental and ecological issues, North and South Korea typifying the problems facing poor and advanced countries respectively. Putting their differences aside, the two Koreas share certain environmental risks that derive from their common geographical location: the Korean Peninsula. The most representative of the many environmental risks they share is climate change. This report aims to explore North Korea’s domestic and foreign policies in response to the crisis of climate change. In particular, it focuses on North Korea’s climate change policy under the Kyoto Protocol system, which had set the first rules and norms for international cooperation coping with climate change since the launch of the UNFCCC.

Every climate policy is somewhat related to adaptation and mitigation, which the UNFCCC highlights as the two fundamental response strategies to address climate change issues. While mitigation looks at limiting climate change by reducing GHG emissions and by enhancing the use of clean and renewable energy resources, adaptation aims to lessen the adverse impacts of climate change through a wide-range of system-specific actions. The priority of North Korea’s policy toward climate change has been to minimize direct damage from natural calamities caused by extreme weather events and to address food shortages and water management, which are indirect offshoots of natural disasters. In short, North Korea’s approach to national capacity-building for climate change has been an adaptation policy rather than mitigation policy. A lack of mitigation policy in North Korea seems rational: North Korea’s GHG emission levels have been quite low due to its decrepit economy and absolute energy shortages. North Korea’s adaptation policy still appears to have focused on land management and restoration of a wrecked environment for the construction of basic infrastructure. North Korea has assumed an unusually active attitude toward international regimes and cooperation related to climate change. This was mainly because the Kyoto Protocol system under the UNFCCC-centered international climate change regime was driven by the principles of Common but Differentiated Responsibilities (CBDR) and Polluter Pays (PP). These principles of the Kyoto Protocol system made North Korea a beneficiary country that would receive financial and technological assistance from advanced economies, and the North Korean regime was able to transform its foreign policy to make good use of the international system under the name of the country’s climate change diplomacy.

North Korea’s impoverished economic conditions render the implementation of its climate change policy difficult without international cooperation or assistance. Hence, it has been heavily reliant on assistance and aid from international organizations or individual advanced economies in order to strengthen its national capacity-building. Yet, it remains questionable whether North Korea has sincerely followed international norms and efforts in global cooperation in responding to climate change as much as it has sincerely responded to domestic natural disasters since the Arduous March in the mid-1990s, or deliberately used the Kyoto Protocol system for its own diplomatic interest in securing international aid. For one, while North Korea actively sought financial and technological assistance from advanced economies based on the principles of CBDR and PP, it is doubtful whether it faithfully fulfilled the “common responsibilities” that were due from Non-Annex I Parties. In addition, doubts linger over the role of the NCCE (National Coordinating Committee on Environment), which has been responsible for the North Korean diplomacy and international cooperation on climate change, as well as the distribution of foreign aid during the Kyoto Protocol era.

The Kyoto Protocol’s dichotomy of one side taking responsibility for its past wrongdoings and the other side receiving benefits for the current victimized outcomes almost came to an end, when the Paris Agreement was adopted by the world in 2015, with the launch of a post-Kyoto Protocol system, i.e., the New Climate System. From then on, all the Parties of the UNFCCC are subject to similar levels of binding responsibilities, and whether North Korea will continue to be active about its diplomacy and international cooperation on climate change under the post-Kyoto Protocol era is left to be seen. In other words, we will certainly be able to confirm North Korea’s sincerity toward international cooperation on climate change only when it is asked to take responsibility and make contributions.

The ramifications of climate change have been more serious for North and South Korea, the co-occupants of the Korean Peninsula, compared to the global average. Although they are bound to share the same ecological destiny, they have yet to even launch a discussion on climate change cooperation. Inter-Korean cooperation on climate change, mostly South Korea’s assistance or aid to tackle climate change in North Korea as well as the Korean Peninsula, was neither sustainable nor long-term—it was more like a one-off deal. In fact, inter-Korean bilateral cooperation has focused more on the South providing the impoverished North with humanitarian assistance and afforestation funds—in other words, hefty funding—than on the two Koreas working together to achieve the common goal of responding to the threats of climate change on the Korean Peninsula. The two Koreas need to propose and pursue initiatives that are for the common good of the Korean Peninsula, rather than cooperation that is rooted in one side’s political and policy agenda. Only when this happens can the two Koreas build trust, and can South Korea truly be of help in North Korea’s national capacity-building to cope with climate change risks.

Climate change on the Korean Peninsula seems to have had more important implications than anywhere else in the world. For the two Koreas, which share the Korean Peninsula, climate change is both a threat and an opportunity. As long as North and South Korea both respond to climate change and remain firmly committed to guaranteeing the sustainability of the Korean nation and the ecosystem of the Korean Peninsula, they may reduce the threat of climate change and at the same time establish peace on the Korean Peninsula. Furthermore, inter-Korean cooperation on climate change, a low politics issue, may help to defuse tensions from North Korea’s nuclear threats and bring actual progress in the trust-building process of the Korean Peninsula.
 

Table of Contents

 
 
Acronyms
Executive Summary
I. Introduction: The Background
II. Climate Change in North Korea and the Consequences
   1. Climate Change on the Korean Peninsula
   2. Loss and Damage from Climate Change
   3. Climate Change and Social Transition in North Korea
III. North Korea’s Climate Change Policy during the Kyoto Protocol Era
   1. North Korea’s Institutions for Environment and Climate Change
   2. Mitigation Policy: The Economy in No Need of Emissions Cut
   3. Adaptation Policy: The Nation in Desperate Need of Land Management
IV. North Korea’s Climate Change Diplomacy and International Cooperation
   1. Unusual Pursuit of Diplomacy and International Cooperation
   2. Doubts about North Korea’s Sincerity toward International Cooperation on Climate
Change
V. Inter-Korean Climate Change Cooperation
   1. South Korea’s Aid-Centered Cooperation with North Korea
   2. Seeking Better Inter-Korean Cooperation on Climate Change
VI. Conclusion
References

 

본 보고서의 내용은 필자들의 견해로 아산정책연구원의 공식 입장과는 다를 수 있습니다.

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최현정
최현정

외교안보센터

최현정 박사는 아산정책연구원 선임연구위원이다. 청와대 녹색성장기획관실 선임행정관(2010-2013) 및 국정기획수석실 행정관(2008-2010)을 역임하였고, 제17대 대통령직인수위원회 정책연구위원(2008), IT전략연구원(現 한국미래연구원) 연구위원(2006), 일본 동경대학 사회과학연구소 연구원(2003-2004), 공군사관학교 국방학과 교수요원(1995-1998)도 역임하였다. 주요 연구분야는 기후변화, 녹색성장, 신성장동력, 동아시아 발전주의 국가 모델과 산업정책, 국가미래전략, 개발원조 등이다. 연세대학교 국제대학(UIC)에서 비전임교수로 강의를 하고 있으며, 주요 저서로는 Green Growth for a Greater Korea: White Book on Korean Green Growth Policy, 2008~2012 (Seoul: Korea Environment Institute, 2013)가 있다. 연세대학교 정치외교학 학사와 정치학 석사, 미국 Purdue University에서 정치학 박사학위를 취득하였다.