A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF ADAPTATION TO CLIMATE CHANGE IN THE ASIA WITH FOCUS ON CHINA AND KOREA CDM

This article provides a brief overview of the CDM, evaluates CDM's promotion of sustainable development in developing countries, reviews the CDM's success in involving developing countries in an international climate change regime, considers CDM as a means of reducing global greenhouse gas emissions, evaluates CDM's achievement of its primary goals, examines CDM activities in China, and Korea, especially in the steel industry, and concludes by offering recommendations for the improvement of the CDM in a post-2012 greenhouse gas regime. This article evaluates CDM's success with three distinct goals: encouraging sustainable development in developing countries, providing an entry point for developing countries to participate in the international efforts to combat climate change, and reducing global greenhouse gas emissions. To appraise its accomplishments in these areas, the article presents case studies of examining CDM activity in China, and Korea. Based on our three criteria for evaluating CDM, this paper concludes that CDM is 1) not yet particularly effective in promoting renewable energy or sustainable development; 2) Effective in promoting developing countries' participation in the international climate regime; and 3) not yet able to significantly reduce emissions. In terms of promoting renewable energy and sustainable development, This paper note that the largest and most profitable CDM projects have been unsustainable HFC or N2O projects. At the same time, we recognize that CDM is still in an early stage of its development and believe that its greatest contribution to date has been one of practical experience, including a set of methodologies and procedures for evaluating emissions reductions projects. Cooperation efforts between China and South Korea have been mixed. These countries work together to undertake many projects in China and there is evidence of some intention to coordinate research and technology transfer within the region. However, our steel industry case studies put into perspective some of the limitations of both CDM and cooperation and provide evidence that the best technologies are still not being transferred. I believe that cooperation and technology transfer will likely occur within the context of corporate relationships, but these assessments will require further study at the company level. Despite these issues, CDM is considered one of the key approaches that these countries will utilize in addressing climate change and upgrading technology. The reliance on market mechanisms is a critical issue for the international regime to address climate change. Whether these systems are sufficient to address climate change remains to be seen. China is the leading global market for CDM projects, which the Chinese government promotes along with various other measures to foster energy efficiency and pollution reductions. South Korea also actively engages in promoting policies and measures both to support and supplement market mechanisms. Further, Japan relies heavily on CDM to provide it with emissions reductions credits in order to meet its international commitments. The evidence from review of CDM in China and Korea, the most active CDM market, preliminarily suggests that market mechanisms will prove insufficient to address climate change issues, and we therefore need to elevate the role of other policies and measures both to support market mechanisms and to supplement them. This view better accords with what CDM has been highly successful in achieving: jump-starting investment in clean energy in China and Korea, developing expertise on new technologies, promoting awareness of the need to change infrastructure, and revealing paths towards emissions reduction goals. In addition to reforming CDM to better achieve the goals of emissions reductions and sustainability, it is clear that market approaches need to be supplemented and supported by greater emphasis on government policies and measures if we are to address climate change successfully.