1. The 22nd meeting of the Republic of Korea-China Joint Committee on Environmental Cooperation took place in Jinan, Shandong Province, China, on January 18. The two sides discussed ways to strengthen bilateral and regional environmental cooperation.

o The ROK and Chinese delegations to the meeting were led by Director-General for Climate Change and Environmental Affairs Kwon Sei-joong of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Deputy Director-General of the Department of International Cooperation Song Xiaozhi of the Ministry of Environmental Protection, respectively.

* Director-General of the Department of International Cooperation Guo Jing of the Ministry of Environmental Protection notified the ROK side a day before the meeting that he could not attend it for health reasons.

2. In the meeting, the two countries shared their current domestic environmental policies, and discussed ways to step up cooperation on issues of mutual interest, including preventing and managing fine dust and other forms of air pollution, and yellow dust, as well as water pollution; environmental industry and technology; and responding to marine pollution, such as Sargassum horneri.

o Director-General Kwon explained that the ROK government recently implemented emergency measures to reduce fine dust in the country, and told the Chinese side that air pollution, including fine dust, is an issue the whole nation is paying attention to, and the people have been continuing to strongly request the government devise measures to tackle the issue.

- Regarding this, Director-General Kwon said that the ROK government is working to come up with comprehensive measures, but as domestic measures can only have a limited effect, he asked for the Chinese side’s cooperation.

o The Chinese side said that its government also carried out strong measures to reduce fine dust under the Air Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan, and as a result, the concentration of ultrafine particles (PM2.5) in Beijing decreased from 90µg/m3 in 2013 to 58µg/m3 in 2017, lower than its goal of 60µg/m3. The ROK side took note of the Chinese side’s efforts and progress that has been made.

- The Chinese side said that China will actively push for the construction of an ecological civilization this year, and that the country, placing a priority on the resolution of air, water and soil pollution, devised action plans and is implementing them.

o The ROK and China shared the view that further efforts are needed to improve the quality of life of the people of both countries and their health, and agreed to step up cooperation to cope with bilateral and regional environmental issues, including air and marine pollution.

- They especially shared the view that it is necessary to manage bilateral environmental cooperation in an integrated way through the ROK-China Environmental Cooperation Center, which the two countries are working to establish under the Korea-China Environmental Cooperation Plan 2018-2022 adopted in the ROK-China summit talks in December last year.

o The ROK and China agreed to continue to carry out nine cooperation projects that the Joint Committee on Environmental Cooperation has been working on, including the “research on the impact of environmental pollution on health,” and “environmental technology and industrial cooperation.” They also agreed to start “research on the joint monitoring of marine litter,” which the ROK side proposed as a new project. Besides, regarding two projects, including “joint research on technology that uses marine ecosystems to mitigate and manage greenhouse gases,” the two sides agreed to conduct further views and decide whether to pursue the projects.

3. Because this meeting, which was previously scheduled for the second half of last year, was delayed and held now due to circumstances in China, the two countries agreed to hold the next Joint Committee meeting in the second half of this year in the ROK, and continue consultations to decide on a date and a venue.

* unofficial translation