Many environmental issues cross national boundaries, and solving them requires transnational cooperation. Korea has built bilateral and multilateral environmental partnerships with neighboring countries to jointly address regional environmental challenges such as transboundary pollution. For the last two decades since 1999, the Tripartite Environment Ministers Meeting among Korea, China, and Japan (TEMM) has served as the highest-level environmental cooperation platform in Northeast Asia. TEMM’s Joint Action Plan 2015-2019 has set nine priority areas including air, water, wastes, climate change and green economy under which thirty seven official programs have been carried out in the form of policy dialogue, joint research, training/education, and pilot project.
The Ministry of Environment has continued its high level participation in bilateral & multilateral environmental meetings and conferences for its knowledge sharing with the rest of the world. The Ministry has also been offering numerous training opportunities to developing country officials for their capacity building. Also, through the Green Climate Fund (GCF) based in Korea, the Ministry is sponsoring developing countries in preparing their GCF project proposals. Since its first signing of agreement in 1987, the Ministry has signed 14 agreements and 419 MOUs with government entities and international organizations so far. The areas of cooperation under the agreements and MOUs are extensive: general environmental cooperation, biodiversity, water, personnel & technology exchange, climate & air, waste, etc.