Climate Dialogue as Functional Peacebuilding in Northeast Asia: Climate

Erokhin, D. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5191-0579 (2026). Climate Dialogue as Functional Peacebuilding in Northeast Asia: Climate. International Journal of Korean Unification Studies (1) 71-104. 10.33728/ijkus.2026.35.1.003.

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Abstract

This article examines whether climate change dialogue can contribute, however modestly, to peace on and around the Korean Peninsula. It argues that climate cooperation should be understood neither as a substitute for hard-security diplomacy nor as a sentimental add-on to peace policy, but as a functional and politically limited form of engagement that may widen communication, generate shared public goods, and gradually institutionalize practical habits of cooperation. The argument builds on the environmental peacebuilding literature, while taking seriously the field’s caution against assuming that environmental cooperation automatically produces peace. The article situates the Korean case in a region marked by weak institutionalization, deep strategic rivalry, and intensifying climate risk. It shows that North Korea has participated in the global climate regime for decades and that inter-Korean environmental cooperation has historical precedent, especially in forestry. On that basis, the article argues that a neutral climate dialogue focused on forestry, disaster risk reduction, air pollution-climate synergies, marine resilience, and low-carbon urban cooperation can make a limited contribution to regional peace by preserving channels of contact and lowering the political cost of cooperation, even if it cannot resolve the structural sources of conflict in Northeast Asia.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	climate diplomacy, environmental peacebuilding, Northeast Asia, Korean Peninsula, North Korea, inter-Korean cooperation, functional cooperation
Research Programs:	Advancing Systems Analysis (ASA) Advancing Systems Analysis (ASA) > Cooperation and Transformative Governance (CAT)
Depositing User:	Luke Kirwan
Date Deposited:	20 Jul 2026 08:32
Last Modified:	20 Jul 2026 08:32
URI:	https://pure.iiasa.ac.at/21746

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