• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.319-357
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• 2017

The pillar of the Paris Agreement, which will define the efforts of the international community against climate change since 2020, is the INDCs submitted by each country. In this study, the INDCs of the major industrial and developing countries (EU, USA, Japan, China, India) and South Korea are reviewed and national circumstances are analyzed based on the status of industrial structure, power mix and GHG emissions. We will also present South Korea's strategies in future climate change negotiations. South Korea should ; find out the special differentiating factors favorable to Korea with which the international community can agree; and establish an interagency working group to prepare for the periodical renewal of the INDC.

• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.65-97
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• 2015

This essay aims to investigate the characteristics of the views of citizen participants of World Wide Views on Climate and Energy which was organized internationally targeting global policy making in Paris at COP21. It also analyzes the views of Korean citizen participants on climate change from the international comparative perspective. For this purpose, we try to outline the results of the consultations which offer 29 issues categorized into five sessions, such as importance of tackling climate change, tools to tackle climate change, UN negotiations and national commitments, fairness and distribution of efforts, making and keeping climate promises. As a result, we come to show some patterns and characteristics of the views of citizen participants in global and national context. Finally, we discuss some policy and theoretical implications of our findings regarding the future of international convention for climate change and of global citizenship formation.

• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.1-31
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• 2015

World Wide Views on Climate and Energy held on 6 June 2015 was a structured citizens' deliberative consultation forum involving 10,000 citizens in 77 countries, and South Korea was one of the participating countries. Citizen participants, selected to reflect the demographic diversity in their countries or regions, were given information beforehand and deliberated for a full day with other citizens and voted on an identical set of questions, designed to reflect policy controversies at the UN COP negotiations to be held in Paris on December 2015. This study, firstly, analyzes the backgrounds and purposes of World Wide Views on Climate and Energy and reports the WWViews event held in Seoul, Korea before examining the theoretical implication of it. And then, this study discusses about the features and opportunities of World Wide Views on Climate and Energy as a way of forming a global deliberative governance by focusing on deliberative democracy, citizen participatory governance, and global citizenship.

• Journal of Environmental Policy
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.149-170
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• 2012

The United Nations Climate Change Conference, Durban 2011, ended on December 12, 2011, 36 hours over its schedule, delivering the Durban Package, which consisted of, inter alia, the extension of the period for Kyoto Protocol term and the launch of Ad-hoc working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action. Despite the positive progress made in Durban, the future of post-2012 climate regime still seems cloudy. Before the Durban conference, some of Annex I countries with emissions reduction commitment under the Kyoto Protocol's first commitment period openly declared their intention not to participate in the second one, reducing the effectiveness of Durban agreement. Parties to the conference have a long list of difficult issues disturbing the materialization of the new legal agreement in 2020 such as level of mitigation targets of individual countries and legal nature of their commitment. Given this uncertainty, the Korean government should reinforce its domestic climate policies rather than settling in the fact that it remains as a non-Annex I county party under the Durban Agreement due to the extension of the Kyoto Protocol period. Domestically, it needs to continue to raise the public awareness for rigorous climate policies to transit its economy to low carbon pathway which reduces the country's dependency on fossil fuel in the long term. It is also important to implement cost effective climate policies to cope with domestic resistance and international competitiveness. Internationally, its priority would be working for trust-building in the on-going negotiation meetings to encourage meaningful participation of all parties.

• The Korean Journal of Air & Space Law and Policy
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.211-241
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• 2012

The Draft International Code of Conduct for Outer Space Activities officially proposed by the European Union on the occasion of the 55th Session of the United Nations Peaceful Uses of the Outer Space last June 2012 in Vienna, Austria is to fill the lacunae of the relevant norms to be applied to the human activities in the outer space and thus has the merit our attention. The missing elements of the norms span from the prohibition of an arms race, safety and security of the space objects including the measures to reduce the space debris to the exchange of information of space activities among space-faring nations. The EU's initiatives, when implemented, cover or will eventually prepare for the forum to deal with such issues of interests of the international community. The EU's initiatives begun at the end of 2008 included the unofficial contacts with major space powers including in particular the USA of which position is believed to have been reflected in the Draft with the aim to have it adopted in 2013. Although the Code is made up of soft law rather than hard law for the subscribing countries, the USA seems to be afraid of the eventuality whereby its strategic advantages in the outer space will be affected by the prohibiting norms, possibly to be pursued by the Code from its current non-binding character, of placing weapons in the outer space. It is with this trepidation that the USA has been opposing to the adoption of the United Nations Assembly Resolutions on the prevention of an arms race in the outer space (PAROS) and in the same context to the setting-up of a working group on the arms race in the outer space in the frame of the Conference on Disarmament. China and Russia who together put forward a draft Treaty on Prevention of the Placement of Weapons in Outer Space and of the Threat or Use of Force against Outer Space Objects (PPWT) in 2008 would not feel comfortable either because the EU initiatives will steal the lime light. Consequently their reactions are understandably passive towards the Draft Code while the reaction of the USA to the PPWT was a clear cut "No". With the above background, the future of the EU Code is uncertain. Nevertheless, the purpose of the Code to reduce the space debris, to allow exchange of the information on the space activities, and to protect the space objects through safety and security, all to maximize the principle of the peaceful use and exploration of the outer space is the laudable efforts on the part of EU. When the detailed negotiations will be held, some problems including the cost to be incurred by setting up an office for the clerical works could be discussed for both efficient and economic mechanism. For example, the new clerical works envisaged in the Draft Code could be discharged by the current UN OOSA (Office for Outer Space Affairs) with minimal additional resources. The EU's initiatives are another meaningful contribution following one due to it in adopting the Kyoto Protocol of 1997 to the UNFCCC (UN Framework Convention on the Climate Change) and deserve the praise from the thoughtful international community.