남북관계는 여전히 교착되어 있다. 본 연구는 기후변화 시대를 맞아 남북 기후변화 공동대응을 위한 정책적 시사점을 전달하는 것에 목적을 둔다. 본 연구는 텍스트마이닝을 통해 북한의 기후변화 관련 보도를 분 석하였다. 분석 결과, 북한의 기후변화 대응은 국제협력과 지속적으로 연 계되고 있다는 점을 파악했고, 북한의 국제사회 발표자료를 중심으로 질 적연구를 진행하여 그 논의를 검증하는 절차를 거쳤다. 북한은 국제협력 을 통해 기후변화에 대응하고자 하며, 산림보호를 통한 기후변화 대응을 강조하고 있다. 따라서 남북 기후변화 공동대응을 위해서는 우선적으로 남북산림협력을 통한 노력이 요구된다고 할 수 있다. 본 연구는 김정은 시기 북한의 산림 논의와 북한 산림 보도의 특징을 분석하기 위해 텍스 트마이닝을 다시 수행하며 남북교류협력 추진을 위한 시사점을 도출하였 다. 이를 통해, 본 연구는 국제사회의 대북제재로 인해 남북협력의 한계 가 있는 현 상황에서, 실현가능한 협력사업으로 인도주의적 사업과 역량 강화, 능력배양 사업을 제언하였다.

North Korea has actively participated in the international community related to environmental agreements. It has proposed various environmental policies internally since the Kim Jong-un regime. In particular, it emphasizes activities related to climate change response, the Sustainable Development Goals, and the conservation of ecosystems including forests and wetlands. In this study, a new security cooperation plan was proposed with an understanding of the climate crisis and environmental regime as a starting point. To this end, trends and recent activities for climate-environment cooperation in the international community and on the Korean Peninsula were analyzed. In addition, North Korea’s conditions for cooperation on the Korean Peninsula, technology demand, and the projected future environment of the Korean Peninsula were dealt with. Ultimately, through advice of experts, we were able to discover cooperation agendas by sector and propose short-term and long-term environmental cooperation strategies for the Korean Peninsula based on them. In this study, conditions and directions for cooperation in fields of climate technology, biological resources, air/weather, water environment, biodiversity, renewable energy, bioenergy, and so on were considered comprehensively. Among 21 cooperation agendas discovered in this study, energy showed the largest number of areas. Renewable energy, forest resources, and environmental and meteorological information stood out as agendas that could be cooperated in the short term. As representative initiatives, joint promotion of ‘renewable energy’ that could contribute to North Korea’s energy demand and carbon neutrality and ‘forest cooperation’ that could be recognized as a source of disaster reduction and greenhouse gas sinks were suggested.

Scientific analysis and inter-Korean cooperation are needed to reduce North Korea’s environmental pollution and deforestation. Many efforts to reduce North Korea’s environmental issue have a fundamental weakness because they are generally influenced by internal and political conditions. To overcome such a weakness, two approaches may be effective; the first is to use new technology such as Google Earth and the second is to build collaborative governance that is invulnerable to political conditions. This study focuses on building collaborative governance models based on Google Earth data investigation, a previous research’s release of Google Earth database, and literature review of North Korea’s environmental issues. This research’s results are as follows. First, North Korea’s industrial regions suffer from environmental pollution and many other regions experience severe deforestation according to Google Earth-based spatial images. Second, we can discern environmental pollution such as air pollution, water pollution, soil pollution, and deforestation using Google Earth-based spatial image. In reality, we are able to identify deforestation and partially soil pollution with Google Earth-based spatial image. Third, there are different environmental problems among North Korea’s local regions. South Korea has to prepare and plan various collaborative governance models depending on North Korea’s local needs on environmental problems.

There were many attempts to increase the level of environmental cooperation in Northeast Asia. However, intergovernmental cooperation has not brought a substantial effects so far. This article aims to provide a model for multilateral joint research of environmental technologies. Each field of environmental problem requires a Consortium of joint research team and R & D mechanism. This model emphasizes joint-funding, tax-break for environmental investment and the importance of multilateral contract.

This research reviews the current state of the environmental problems in Northeastern Asia and emphasizes the necessity of building a sustainable regime of multilateral environmental cooperation. The Process and problems of multilateral environmental cooperation system are briefly discussed. This research stresses the importance of contractual environment that enhances the level of enforcement of international environmental agreement. Within the contractual environment, international regimes can support the parties of conference to build up administrative capacity and scientific technology to cope with transborder pollution problems. Some policy proposals such as cooperation among central governments and local governments, and the participation of NGOs are suggested.

This research emphasizes the necessity of building a multilateral environmental cooperation. The Process and Problems of multilateral environmental cooperation system are discussed, and some policy proposals are suggested. Especially for Northeast Asia, a comprehensive multilateral environmental cooperation system is required because of transborder pollutions. Within the contractual environment, international institutions can help the parties of conference to build up national capacity to cope with environmental threat.