President Lee Myung-bak met with the chief of the U.N. Environment Program Friday and discussed ways to promote green growth, the presidential spokesman said.

UNEP executive director Achim Steiner was in Seoul to attend the second Global Green Growth Summit, which Korea established as an annual conference last year. Steiner also plans to attend the World Expo that opens Friday in the southwestern port city of Yeosu.

Lee told Steiner green growth is a task for all of humankind and UNEP has important roles to play in promoting the environment-friendly cause, presidential spokesman Park Jeong-ha said.

Steiner praised South Korea for adopting green growth as a national strategy and developing it into a major international agenda item, saying Seoul helped put the "DNA" of green growth into the premier economic forum of the G20.

The UNEP chief asked for South Korea's continued support in making green growth a key topic for the upcoming U.N. Conference on Sustainable Development in Brazil, also known as the "Rio+20," the spokesman said. (Yonhap)