[Citizen College] Climate Change and International Cooperation

On July 20, 2018, the 14th lecture of “Citizen College: Citizens Between Life and Knowledge” was held by Seongbuk Village Citizenship Education Center and the Korea University Peace and Democracy Institute(PDI). The 14th speaker was Professor Sung Eun Kim of Korea University.

The topic of the lecture was “Climate Change and International Cooperation”, which examines the current status and causes of climate change, and why it is difficult to solve the problem internationally to climate change. In a report published by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Program in 2013, scientific evidence has been presented that the warming of the climate system is clear. Representative phenomena of climate change are rising surface temperature, and other extreme weathers and climates. Climate change is caused by fossil fuel-related artificial activities such as greenhouse gases. Therefore, the international community signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Rio in 1992 and the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. However, these conventions have been hampered by the prisoner’s dilemma and the asymmetry of the benefits and costs between developed and developing countries. So in 2015, the first universal agreement, Paris treaty was adopted. The agreement was successful, but President Trump said he would withdraw from the Paris treaty after his inauguration. Nevertheless, it seems that there will be no difficulty for the United States to enforce the Paris treaty because the fossil fuels’ competitiveness has already been reduced, and there is a movement to sustain eco – friendly policies at the provincial level. (Summary: Moon Hyung Lee)