Mechanisms 20th Tripartite Environment Ministers Meeting in Suzhou, China 2018.06.23 ~ 2018.06.24

The 20th Tripartite Environment Ministers Meeting was held in Suzhou, China on June 23-24, 2018. Minister LI Ganjie of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment of China, Minister NAKAGAWA Masaharu of the Ministry of the Environment of Japan, Minister KIM Eunkyung of the Ministry of Environment of ROK led the delegations to participate in the meeting. TCS delegation headed by DSG YAMAMOTO Yasushi and DSG HAN Mei also attended as an observer. 

At the open forum, the ministers delivered keynote speeches on each country’s domestic policies, actions and progress in environmental protection which covered air quality, biodiversity, chemical management, climate change, etc. They listened to the report from the sub-forum representatives and awarded 6 winners (2 from each country) the TEMM20 Special Contribution Award. Following the open forum, the three ministers had a closed-door meeting to discuss further on tripartite environmental cooperation to tackle current challenges and build a cleaner Northeast Asia. 

TEMM is the longest-standing and most institutionalized tripartite minister-level mechanism incepted in 1999. To celebrate the 20th anniversary, the TCS published the TEMM20 Anniversary brochure with support from the three ministries, and the China-ASEAN Environmental Cooperation Center. The brochure which aims to raise public awareness of tripartite environmental cooperation was welcomed by the ministers. In addition, the ministers recognized with appreciation the role of the TCS in advancing trilateral environmental cooperation and expected its broader participation in the TEMM mechanism. 

As an international organization to promote peace and common prosperity among China, Japan, and ROK, the TCS will spare no effort to support tripartite environmental cooperation under TEMM. 

*The TEMM20 Anniversary Brochure in Chinese, Japanese, Korean and English can be downloaded at TCS Publications.