KEI Online Newsletter Vol.21

KEI Policy Forum on Carbon Neutrality

The Korea Environment Institute (KEI) hosted a forum on carbon neutrality on June 30 at the President Hotel, Seoul. Subtitled 'The Grand Transition to a Carbon Neutral Society based on Sympathy, Participation, and Action', the event was sponsored by the National Research Council for Economics, Humanities, and Social Sciences (NRC). The Ministry of Environment and 17 other leading research institutes affiliated to the Council, including the Korea Research Institute for Human Settlements (KRIHS), Science and Technology Policy Institute (STEPI), and Korea Energy Economics Institute (KEEI), cooperated.

The main purpose of the event was to develop short-term action plans to solve urgent tasks associated with carbon neutrality. The specific roles of the government, enterprise, and the citizen to achieve carbon neutrality across the entire nation were widely discussed. Dr. Dong Won Shin, Head of the Division for Climate and Energy, also devoted to the research on carbon neutrality, presided over the presentation session, and President Jeyong Yoon the general discussion session.

The first session included the keynote speech and presentation. Dr. Sun Jin Yun, Chairperson of the Carbon Neutrality Committee, gave the speech with the title 'A step forward into the future: Inclusive carbon neutral society.' Dr. Changhoon Lee, Chief Research Fellow and Head of the KEI Green New Deal Research Group, gave a presentation on the key issues of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. In the following roundtable discussion, Presidents of 6 research institutes including the Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade (KIET), Korea Institute of Public Finance (KIPF), and Korea Labor Institute (KLI), participated to draw up a blueprint for transitioning to a carbon neutral society.

KEI's 2nd Quarterly General Meeting

KEI held its 2nd Quarterly General Staff Meeting online on Monday, June 28. At the meeting, rewards were given out to 9 research projects selected as outstanding work of the year 2020. The first place went to the project of building and assessing adaptive capacity to climate change for the national risk management, the chief researcher of which was Dr. Yeaora Chae, Director General of the Climate, Air Quality and Safety Department. Other projects included research on the management of hazardous substances in plastics (Dr. Yangwon Suh), research on developing and utilizing monitoring indicators to assess the transition toward a circular economy (Dr. Jihye Jo), and research on developing analysis system for regional environmental status to support environmental assessment (Dr. Jongyoon Park). Reports of the select projects are available at KEI's official website in Korean, with executive summaries in English included.

KEI Seminars

The Korea Adaptation Center for Climate Change (KACCC) held its regular seminar on Wednesday, June 23. The topic of this month was Understanding the IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5˚. Professor Young Eun Choi, from Konkuk University, Department of Geography, was invited to give a presentation on the topic.

The Division for Environmental Planning held an expert seminar on June 1 with the topic of the current status and characteristics of global environmental standards to establish Smart Green standards, as part of KEI's research project, Establishing Comprehensive Plans for Smart Green Cities. The lecture was given by Eun Sook Kim, Senior Researcher at the Korea Testing & Research Institute.

The Division for Social Environment held its Citizen Science seminar on Tuesday, June 15. Professor Jin Hee Park from Dongguk University was invited to give a talk on the current status of citizen science and its implications from the perspective of environmental policy.

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