Minister Maanee Lee of Environment, Republic of Korea, joins the 13th Tripartite Environment Ministers Meeting (TEMM13) to be held in Busan, Korea on 28-29 April, 2011 and discusses with the Chinese and Japanese Minister current environmental issues and cooperation measures among the three countries.
Serving as a venue for the highest-level dialogue for environmental cooperation in North East Asia (NEA), TEMM has been held every year by Korea, China and Japan in rotation. Since its inception at the initiative of Korea in 1999, the meeting has aimed at making joint response to global and regional environmental issues and enhancing a sense of environmental community among the three countries.
At TEMM13, the three Ministers will present major environmental policies and responsive measures for global and regional environmental issues followed by open discussion.
As its major environmental policies to realize the vision of “Green Korea”, Korea will introduce Low Carbon, Green Growth programs such as green card, “Me-First” movement and GHG emissions target management system; Four Major Rivers Restoration Project; environmental policies for daily life such as noise, indoor air pollution, artificial light, odor and asbestos management.
Korea’s major policies on global and regional environment to be introduced in the meeting are climate change response including national GHG emissions reduction target, climate change adaptation measures and its bid to host the 18th Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC (COP18); environmental industry and technology development in the areas of Eco-Innovation projects, dissemination of waterworks and sewerage technology to developing countries and support for the establishment of master plan; Dust and Sandstorms (DSS).
The three Ministers are to examine and assess the progress of the Joint Action Plan for ten priority cooperative fields under TEMM adopted at TEMM12 held in March 2010 in Japan.
In particular, a Special Session will be organized in this TEMM where the outcome of Students and Business Forums on 28 April, 2011 will be reported to the three Ministers followed by open discussion.
Students and Business Forums are expected to be joined by 30 participants in total, five representatives from university and
industry from the three countries respectively; Students Forum is held under the themes of “How to reduce GHG emissions in campus and build a low carbon, green campus” and “How to nurture future green leaders for Low Carbon, Green Growth”; in Business Forum, participants discuss joint cooperative measures through presentations and open discussion under the themes of “Cooperative measures for information sharing to expand the environmental market” and “Cooperative measures to enhance cooperative projects in developing countries for the improvement of the environment.”
Furthermore, the three Ministers will adopt a Joint Communiqué indicating their agreement to further strengthen joint cooperation to address current environmental issues in NEA and across the world such as climate change, green growth, biodiversity, DSS, waste and so forth.
Taking note of huge impact of massive earthquake and tsunami in the Northeastern part of Japan in March this year and subsequent radioactive pollution, the Joint Communiqué will contain cooperative measures such as information sharing and capacity building with a view to preventing and overcoming environmental damage originating from such disasters.
Bilateral meetings between the three Ministers will be held on THU 28 April, 2011 on bilateral cooperative measures. Korea will introduce its Low Carbon, Green Growth policy, Four Major Rivers Restoration Project and so forth and suggest enhancing cooperation particularly in biodiversity and water industry. Besides, Korea will request support to China and Japan for the hosting of COP18 and 2012 World Conservation Congress (WCC).
Through Korea-Japan bilateral meeting, Korea is planning to encourage Japan to share information and expand cooperation on the recent issue of radioactive pollution.
Minister Lee will remark that TEMM13 is an important opportunity to come up with cooperative measures to prevent and overcome environmental damage originating from disasters in NEA and emphasize the need for active tripartite cooperation under the framework of TEMM to come through such environmental challenges occurring across the world as climate change and biodiversity loss and in NEA as DSS and illegal movement of waste.