• Korean Journal of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.235-250
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• 2021

The overarching question of this study is how a typical rice cultivation system in Gimje, Korea was keeping up with the triple-win challenge of climate-smart agriculture (CSA). To answer this question, we have employed (1) quantitative data from direct measurement of energy, water, carbon and information flows in and out of a rice cultivation system and (2) appropriate metrics to assess production, efficiency, GHG fluxes, and resilience. The study site was one of the Korean Network of Flux measurement (KoFlux) sites (i.e., GRK) located at Gimje, Korea, managed by National Academy of Agricultural Science, Rural Development Administration. Fluxes of energy, water, carbon dioxide (CO₂) and methane (CH₄) were directly measured using eddy-covariance technique during the growing seasons of 2011, 2012 and 2014. The production indicators include gross primary productivity (GPP), grain yield, light use efficiency (LUE), water use efficiency (WUE), and carbon uptake efficiency (CUE). The GHG mitigation was assessed with indicators such as fluxes of carbon dioxide (F_CO2), methane (F_CH4), and nitrous oxide (F_N2O). Resilience was assessed in terms of self-organization (S), using information-theoretic approach. Overall, the results demonstrated that the rice cultivation system at GRK was climate-smart in 2011 in a relative sense but failed to maintain in the following years. Resilience was high and changed little for three year. However, the apparent competing goals or trade-offs between productivity and GHG mitigation were found within individual years as well as between the years, causing difficulties in achieving the triple-win scenario. The pursuit of CSA requires for stakeholders to prioritize their goals (i.e., governance) and to practice opportune interventions (i.e., management) based on the feedback from real-time assessment of the CSA indicators (i.e., monitoring) - i.e., a purpose-driven visioneering.

• Journal of Climate Change Research
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.95-107
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• 2014

The 'Green Start Movement' is a practical movement of green living to efficiently reduce the greenhouse gases originating from non-industrial fields such as household, commerce, transportation, etc. for the 'materialization of a low carbon society through green growth (Low Carbon, Green Korea)'. When the new government took office, following the Lee Myeongbak Administration that had presented 'Low Carbon, Green Growth' as a national vision, it was required to set up the direction of the practical movement of green life to respond to climate change persistently and stably as well as to evaluate the performance of the green start movement over the past 5 years. A questionnaire survey was administered to a total of 265 persons including public servants, members of environmental and non-environmental NGOs, participants of the green start movement and professionals. In the results of the questionnaire survey, many opinions have indicated that the awareness of the green start movement is increasing and the green start movement has had a positive impact on individual behavior and group behavior in terms of green living. The result shows, however, that the environmental NGOs don't cooperate sufficiently to create a 'green living' effect on a national scale. Action needs to be taken on the community level in order to generate a culture of environmental responsibility. The national administration office of the Green Start Movement Network should play the leading role between the government and environmental NGOs. The Green Start National Network should have greater autonomy and governance of the network needs to be restructured in order to work effectively. Also the Green Start Movement should identify specific local characteristics to support activities that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Best practices can be shared to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by a substantial amount.

• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.129-167
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• 2021

The emission trading system is an essential policy for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and converting low-carbon society. EU ETS is a good benchmark that is ahead of Korea's emission trading system in terms of operating period and design know-how. Therefore, this study focused on the key design elements of EU ETS phase 4 such as total emission allowances issued (Cap), free allocation method, carbon leakage list, market stability reserve, and innovation supporting system. In addition, we analyzed the impact of key design elements and their changes during EU ETS Phase 1 to 4 on the design and operation of Korea emission trading system in the future. First of all, the expected impact on the design of Korea emission trading system is to increase three demands: preparing benchmark renewal plans, establishing criteria for selecting free allocation industries that reflect domestic industrial structure and characteristics and introducing two-stage evaluations for free allocation industries, and preparing specific plan to support innovation and industries using allowance auction revenues. The next three impacts on the operation of Korea emission trading system are the increased needs for objective and in-depth impact assessment of plan and amendments, provision of system stability and response opportunities by quickly confirming plan and amendments prior to the implementation, and coordination of the emission trading system governance and stakeholder participation encouragement.

• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.569-611
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• 2018

Rapid economic growth, urbanization, and industrialization of China have tremendously degraded the overall quality of living environments, especially the air quality, not only negatively affecting Chinese people but also impacting citizens of neighboring countries, namely Korea. The Chinese government has invested much effort to regulate the air pollution due to burning coal through introducing strict environmental monitoring policies and aggressive implementation. This paper presents an overview of Chinese air pollution prevention policy due to burning coal, and the associated trends and specifics of institutional arrangements regarding air pollutant emission regulations. It turns out that the policies have become stricter than before; some polices are geared towards enforcing extra regulation at the regional level. It is expected that the regulation will become stricter in the future. However, the actual contribution and feasibility of such policies must be analyzed based on sound science. The policies seem to care little about influencing the air quality of Korea, and this has to be improved. In order to do so, it is important to strengthen environmental cooperation between Korea and China, and better yet to research on not only the air quality but also the associated fields, such as energy, industrial technology, and global environmental governance.