Climate Change Governance In North-East Asia: Regional Cooperation System And Effectiveness Assessment

Fewer issues require greater levels of regional cooperation and coordination than climate change warrants. However, regional efforts to address climate change and establish effective supranational governance mechanisms vary considerably. While the EU and North America have made considerable strides in establishing effective governance mechanisms to tackle the issue of climate change, the North-East Asian region lacks precariously behind. Using North-East Asia as a case study, this paper investigates the current status of regional level cooperation in the region and analyzes the factors that determine the current level of governance. In doing this, the dissertation aims to outline how effective the current governance mechanisms in the region are and discuss possibilities for improving their effectiveness. After a comprehensive review of regional existent climate change governance regimes on different levels, comparisons of the Trilateral Environmental Minister Meeting among China, Japan and Korea and the European Union’s Directorate-General for Climate Action are made using the Regime Effectiveness Assessment model. The concerns of three countries over the tradeoff between ’expected gains’ and ’decision costs’ underscore the significance of an incremental approach to achieve a ’win-win-win’ situation. Results indicate that more market-oriented, grassroots-oriented policies are primarily preferred, and on this basis to vertically intensify the existing implementation architecture.