《Global Issues for Public Administration ODA_3-4》
Climate-related ODA

Hyemin Park (Professor)
University of Seoul

Unlike the Kyoto Protocol that only required developed nations to reduce emissions, the implementation of the Paris Agreement that required both developing and developed nations to reduce emissions made it inevitable for developing countries to also take part in carbon neutrality and greenhouse gas reduction. 124 out of 141 recipient countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC) submitted their national greenhouse gas reduction goals to the United Nations. Developing countries now bear considerable responsibility regarding climate change to the extent where seven recipient countries of the OECD DAC are included in the top 20 greenhouse emitting countries. Official Development Assistance (ODA) in the environmental sector is also shifting from environment improvement projects such as water management and waste management to green transformation projects of developing countries.
The multilateral system for responding to climate change such as the G7 Climate Club discussing the climate crisis as a key message for the 2023 Davos Forum is multi-faceted that goes beyond being simply a climate change agreement. While urging developing countries to participate, support for improving climate response capacities is also increasing for developing countries to proactively join this system and fulfill their roles for responding to the climate crisis. According to the 16th Climate Change Conference of the Copenhagen Accord in 2009, it was decided that developed countries would establish a climate fund worth USD 100 billion every year until 2020 to support developing countries. It was once again confirmed to establish an annual USD 100 billion fund for developing countries to respond to climate change at the 2022 Climate Summit. At the 17th Climate Change Conference of the Parties held in 2022, an agreement was made on establishing “loss and damage fund” for developing countries due to climate change. The World Bank set aside 50% of ODA for the next five years as financial responses for climate change, thereby significantly expanding the budget from USD 83 billion between 2016 and 2020 to USD 200 billion between 2021 and 2025. The Asia Development Bank also plans to support for climate change responses that averaged USD 6 billion annually until 2020 to USD 80 billion until 2030.
In bilateral relations, efforts for reducing emissions are two-tracked with pressure and support. The EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) is part of the “Green Deal” that aims to create a new growth engine for the EU's green transition, which contains plans to invest EUR 1 trillion over a period of 10 years for domestic and foreign sanctions such as increasing various emission standards to reduce emissions and to promote green transformation, as well as plans to invest 25% of ODA financial resources in climate change response. The US Green New Deal shares the same context. The Biden Administration plans to invest USD 5 trillion over the next 10 years in climate change response, while also quadrupling support on climate change for developing countries compared to 2021. Japan also declared 2050 Net Zero and set aside 50% of ODA for the next five years as financial resources for climate change response.
This paper examines the scope of green ODA that does not yet have a range that is internationally agreed upon to examine how ODA is defined in the environmental sector within Korea’s policies, and recent trends of Korea’s climate-related ODA will be examined based on this definition to draw up the implications. Next, domestic and overseas changes related to climate change will be investigated from the aspect of strengthening ties among the international convention goals, domestic policy goals, and development cooperation goals; climate change mainstreaming across all sectors of development cooperation; and support for structural transformation to a low-carbon society. Lastly, this paper suggests strengthening ties among policies from finding and implementing projects, as well as achieving Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) and virtuous cycle for the climate-related ODA sector.