Korea Proposes Hosting UN Earth Summit in 2012
By Michael Ha
Staff Reporter
The Lee Myung-bak administration is making a pitch to the United Nations to hold the next U.N. world environmental summit in South Korea. The next summit is scheduled to be held in 2012.
Prime Minister Han Seung-soo made the proposal for hosting the event in Korea during his keynote address at the 63rd session of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, Thursday.
Called ``U.N. World Summit on Sustainable Development," the gathering is held every 10 years and brings together top government environmental officials, non-governmental organization (NGO) members and prominent environmental groups and activists from around the world. The conference attracts some 30,000 participants and is considered one of the most influential environmental summits in the world. The last conference was held in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 2002.
Prime Minister Han remarked in his U.N. speech that the first commitment period for the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012 and that the international community would need to work on setting up a new round of discussions and a framework to implement environmentally sound, sustainable development initiatives.
And since the past three U.N. environmental summits were held in Europe, America, and Africa, it's wholly appropriate that the next gathering be held in an Asian nation, he noted during his address.
``Asia is the most populous region in the world undergoing vibrant economic transformation," he noted, ``which makes the sustainable development issue all the more relevant. As a country well placed to play a bridging role between developed and developing nations, Korea hopes to make a contribution by hosting this conference.
``While the rapid growth experiences of Korea and other countries have served as a useful reference for many developing countries, we should move beyond the conventional economic growth approach of `Grow First, Clean up Later," Han said.
Han told the U.N. General Assembly representatives that the South Korean government is embarking on a green project, an economic development model that embraces low-carbon emissions. The Lee administration is also taking steps to help establish a pan-East Asian forum to address climate changes, Han said.
`` Korea recently embraced a vision of `low-carbon, green-growth' paradigm. We strongly believe that this is and should be the new paradigm for growth and development of the world in the future," Han said. ``We support the global vision of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent by 2050 and plan to announce next year our voluntary mid-term mitigation goal set for the year 2020".
``We will also launch the "East Asia Climate Partnership," which will initiate programs amounting to $200 million over the next five years to support other countries in making their economic growth compatible with climate change."
Han also said that the Korean government hopes to take on a bigger role in assisting developing nations and help stabilize the world's troubled regions.
``The new government in Korea has posited `contributing to the international community as a trusted partner' as one of its pillars of foreign policy," he said. ``To this end, we are strengthening our role in Official Development Assistance (ODA) and Peacekeeping Operations (PKO)."
He noted that Korea's role in ODA ``has increased three times, with assistance to Africa increasing three-fold in the last three years."
``We plan to triple our current ODA to reach over $3 billion by 2015. To better coordinate our development cooperation policy with the international community, Korea plans to join the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) in 2010.
``In U.N. Peacekeeping Operations, Korea is also seeking ways to strengthen its participation. Currently, we have a 350-strong contingent dispatched to the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) and are considering legislation to facilitate our PKO participation."