In conjunction to the UN General Assembly held in September 2019, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterrez convened the first UN Climate Action Summit. Recognizing that the international community has so far failed to adequately combat the causes and consequence of climate change, the Summit was intended to bolster international action on climate change. National leaders, local communities, private enterprises and financial institutions stakeholders attended the Summit, reaching a unanimous agreement to amplify action to respond to and mitigate the impact of climate change. Among some notable pledges were Korea announcing its plan to increase climate finance by two-folds, to USD 200 million, and to host the P4G Summit in 2020, thus demonstrating its willingness to take part in global action.
   As the international community strives to promote climate actions, this study was conducted to explore how we can mainstream or integrate climate change into Korea’s international development cooperation activities. Along with gender equality, Korea embraces climate change as a cross-sectoral challenge and reflects this in its development cooperation activities. However, the OECD DAC 2018 Peer Review suggested that Korea should address the impact of climate change in its development cooperation activities more extensively. In an effort to make such improvement, this study first examines the contemporary discussions regarding climate change and international development. The study analyzes a selection of notable policies, guidelines and tools implemented by major donors, based on the framework provided in the recent peer-learning exercise of the Greening Development Cooperation by the OECD DAC. In order to reflect on the actual implications of such policies, guidelines, and tools, we selected Peru – a climate vulnerable country – as the subject of our case study. We examined how such policies, guidelines, and tools were applied in the field through a review of existing literature and extensive field work. By comparing and contrasting donors including Korea, we seek to present applicable measures and longer-term policy suggestions for Korea to better integrate climate change with development cooperation. The details of the study are as follows.
   Chapter 2 summarizes the discussion between the OECD and the Multilateral Development Bank on integrated response to development cooperation and climate change. First, we reviewed discussions at the OECD DAC, as embodied in its policy guidance “Integrating Climate Change Adaptation into Development Cooperation” published in 2009, and introduced in its new guidelines announced at the end of 2019 under the title of “The only way forward: aligning development co-operation and climate action.” Next, we analyzed the current status of climate change response in the international community using the OECD’s statistics system, and reviewed the major elements required to comprehensively reflect climate change in development cooperation activities, based on lessons gained by the peer-learning study of DAC members announced in 2019 by the ENVIRONET working party to harmonize environment and development concerns. We also examined climate change strategies and tools (safeguards, monitoring and evaluation measures) used at multilateral development banks such as the World Bank, ADB, and IDB, and reviewed private sector-led climate change mainstreaming initiatives and key principles and tools. The purpose of this examination was to identify the progress and direction of international discussions.
   In Chapter 3, we reviewed the vulnerability of climate change in our case study country, Peru, and the current status of policies in the area by the Peruvian government. Peru, with its diverse topography, is vulnerable to climate change impacts. In the northern coastal regions, heavy rains and floods and landslides caused by El Niño and La Niña are frequent. In the southern coastal regions, water shortages and agricultural damage due to changes in precipitation and loss of alpine glaciers are increasing. In alpine areas, landslides, chronic water shortages and abnormally low temperatures are caused by melting alpine ice. Tropical rainforests, meanwhile, are being appropriated for economic activities, reducing their capacity as greenhouse gas sinks and accelerating climate change. In Peru, these climate change impacts hinder sustainable development because they have a particularly harmful effect on the poor and other vulnerable groups, who are dependent on natural resources as they lack the resilient infrastructure for climate phenomena such as housing, bridges, roads and water and sewers. The Peruvian government has a national policy aimed at minimizing the socioeconomic impacts of abnormal climates. Peru's National Development Strategic Plan clearly places climate change and the environment at the center of its main strategies and uses national environmental policy, mid- and long-term environmental action plans, environmental action agendas, and other policy instruments for public environmental management. On the international side, the government submitted an INDC document and a National Report (NC) to the UNFCCC in 2016, detailing its plans to integrate climate change management in national development and expressing its commitment to address environmental and climate change issues. However, the field survey indicated that climate change response has been placed on the back burner compared to other urgent development tasks, not only in development cooperation activities, but also in the implementation of government- wide development policies.
   Considering these characteristics of climate change and the situation in Peru, Chapter 4 analyzes how, and under which background, advanced donors are integrating climate change and development cooperation activities. Upon reviewing the climate change strategies, policies, and climate risk assessment tools in place at major donors to Peru (the United States, Germany, and Switzerland), it was evident that donor countries had developed their own strategies to reflect climate change in development cooperation activities. Climate change had been adopted as a cross-sectoral issue in international development cooperation strategies at the government level. Germany does not have an open climate change strategy or development cooperation strategy, but is consistently leading the way in international climate change negotiations and development cooperation. Donor countries commonly analyze risks and impacts related to climate change in the early stages of the project (excavation and planning) and include them as business elements, using various tools such as risk and impact assessment, safeguards, checklists and databases. During our review of donor countries’ strategies, policies, and tools for cooperative activities with Peru, we were able to see cases where short- and medium-term climate risks were identified in the early planning stages of the project using the tools mentioned above.
   Chapter 5 reviewed relevant policies and their implementation status in Korea and the current state of support for Peru, the only key partner country where climate change response was included in support goals. The 2nd Framework for International Development Cooperation and the Country Partnership Strategy (CPS), which were announced in 2016, did not explicitly address climate change, but since then, we can confirm efforts to understand climate change from a more integrated perspective, made visible in the climate change strategies formulated at executing institutions, evaluations of mainstreaming efforts in climate change conducted by the Committee for International Development Cooperation, and comprehensive execution plans announced recently. Meanwhile, in the case of Peru, our case study target, while response to climate change is set as the main support goal, there are few projects directly or indirectly related to climate change, and no comprehensive considerations are being made for the mid- to long-term impacts of climate change, diminishing the visibility of implementation achievements. In addition, environmental screening tools are the only tools used to identify climate risks in advance, suggesting that there is a lack of mechanisms for identifying potential climate risks, when compared to the case of advanced donor countries reviewed in Chapter 4.
   Based on the above analysis, Chapter 6 summarizes the main findings, suggests an integrated approach to climate change and development cooperation, and presents future tasks. The analysis of donor countries confirmed that donors are supporting recipient countries through systematic tools based on action taken at the government level to respond to climate change. At the same time, since developing countries have a relatively low development priority in responding to climate change despite their high climate vulnerability, the role of the donor country becomes more important. Thus we propose to reflect these facts in the 3rd Basic Framework for International Development Cooperation and National Cooperation Strategies as a measure that could reinforce Korea’s policy will to participate in the response to climate change, a global challenge. We also suggest an integrated consideration of climate change in individual projects and in the monitoring and evaluation process. In addition, it will be essential to strengthen awareness in recipient countries to allow them to respond effectively and efficiently to climate change impeding their sustainable development.
   As we can see from the recent controversies over particulate air pollution and climate refugee issues, climate change is a global problem that transcends national borders and is a challenge that calls for a joint response from the international community. In particular, damages from climate change are more severe in developing countries, and in some cases have a significant impact on greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, an integrated approach to responding to climate change is needed in all development cooperation activities. This study further identifies tasks necessary to realize such an integrated approach to climate change and development cooperation ‒ namely, the promotion of policy will, development of policy tools to integrate climate change agenda, and support measures to raise awareness in recipient countries. More specifically, these efforts would include the integration of climate change response measures into Korea’s development cooperation policies to improve the policy agenda, an evaluation system to monitor climate risks at the level of individual activities to allow an integrated consideration of climate change, and activities to develop and promote the use of various policy tools such as checklists and safeguards. By taking account of climate change in all development co-operation activities using these policy tools, it will be possible to elevate the relatively low priority of climate change activities and raise awareness in recipient countries.