South Korea Needs to Prioritize Combating Climate Change Within Its International Development Strategy

Spotlight Activity: South Korea Needs to Prioritize Combating Climate Change Within Its International Development Strategy

Climate finance is one of three key pillars of the Paris Agreement. Article 2 of the Agreement clearly states to ‘align finance flows with a path of low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development.’

South Korea is aiming to play a central role in the international negotiations stage, hosting the Green Climate Fund Secretariat, which specializes in climate change in developing countries. Korea is seeking to improve the quality and quantity of its climate change development assistance. However, its actual performance is far from its intention. Korea ranked 26th out of 29 member countries according to the DAC statistics in 2014. The following statistics in 2016 also reconfirms that Korea’s international contribution remains relatively low. Major projects were made through the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), and the largest water protection project was provided through The Export-Import Bank of Korea.

Climate-related development finance by objective (2016)

Unit. USD million (constant 2016 prices)
Source. Climate Change: OECD DAC External Development Finance Statistics
Korea’s Climate-related development finance (2016)

Unit. USD million (constant 2016 prices)
Source. Climate Change: OECD DAC External Development Finance Statistics

Status: Standing Still

According to Korea Institute for International Economic Policy’s recent report on “Evaluation of mainstreaming climate change in ODA projects”, Korea does not explicitly stress climate change in its top-level strategy or policy document on international development cooperation, which is a fundamental obstacle to pursuing climate change. In the period when ‘Green Growth’ was promoted at the national level, countermeasures against climate change were emphasized by implementing agencies.

Source. Korea Institute for International Economic Policy (2017) “Evaluation of mainstreaming climate change in ODA projects”

Take Action

To take action, simply fill out your name and email in the form below and the message will be sent.

Your message will be sent to:

Ministry of Economy and Finance
Sejong Government Complex, 477, Galmae-ro, Sejong-si 30109, Korea
Tel. +82-44-215-2114
Fax. +82-44-215-8033
Email. fppr@korea.kr