Recognizing the severity of climate change and the need for a response to the issue, Seoul Metropolitan Government formed a global environment team as the first local self-government to do so in September 2005. The team is in charge of all work related to climate change. In 2007, it set a target of reducing greenhouse gases emissions by 20% by 2010 and 25% by 2020 of the 1990 level and announced it through the Seoul Declaration on Environmentally-Friendly Energy. Some examples of response measures to climate change pursued by Seoul Metropolitan Government are establishing a foundation for responding to climate change, pursuing greenhouse gases reduction projects, establishing response measures to climate change, and inducing citizen’s participation in climate change response efforts. The following are the major measures taken by the City of Seoul.

A. Enactment of Climate Change Ordinance (Scheduled to be enacted in August 2008)

In order to continuously and systematically pursue comprehensive climate change measures, enacting an ordinance that reflects the reality of Seoul Metropolitan Government is needed. Therefore, a Climate Change Ordinance is expected to be enacted after fully collecting the opinions of environmental groups, companies, citizens and legislation documents from Korea and other countries around the world.

1. Declaration of greenhouse gases reduction target
2. Responsibility of Seoul Metropolitan Government, self-governing districts, businesses, citizens, and civil groups
3. Establishment and implementation of comprehensive response measures for climate change
4. Organization and operation of advisory group on climate change
5. Pursuit of CDM project
6. Regulations on business to increase effectiveness of greenhouse gases reduction

B. Requests for Seoul Metropolitan Government to Take Actions on Climate Change

Seoul Metropolitan Government plans to provide a map on the climate situations of each region and the amount of energy consumed to provide information with the aim to spread awareness on climate change response among general citizens and form city plan measures taking into account weather conditions of the city.

C. Urban Climate Monitoring System Innovation

The most important part in establishing practical climate change measures is to have accurate climate change monitoring system. Seoul Metropolitan Government has 90 Urban Climate Monitoring stations (80 at Elementary schools, 8 by the river sides, 2 in the mountains) and 4 Weather Monitoring Bureaus by Cheonggyecheon (Stream) – Jangtonggyo (Bridge), Saebyeokdari (Bridge), Seongbukcheon (Stream), and Jeongneungcheon (Stream). Seoul Metropolitan Government is planning to establish 25 more Automated Weather Stations (AWS) to enhance accuracy in climate monitoring and is planning to make use of 27 Automated Weather Stations - owned by the Korea Meteorological Administration – established in Seoul.

D. Establishment of greenhouse gases Inventory

A project to assess the greenhouse gas inventory in Seoul is now underway to be used as basic data for comprehensive and systematic promotion of climate change measures, to be reflected in establishing greenhouse gases reduction measures by understanding the sources of greenhouse gases emissions, emissions amount for each source, and analyzing the effects of greenhouse gases reduction. Seoul Metropolitan Government plans to establish a database (1990-2020) on annual greenhouse gases emissions amounts and utilize it in estimating greenhouse gases mitigation potential and make evaluations on the effect of greenhouse gases mitigation of major projects.

E. Climate Change Fund

Changing the intended usage from the City Gas Business Fund to a Climate Change Fund and expanding the scale of the fund in accordance with the increased demand are main measures to secure funding for promoting climate change schemes. Major usage of climate change fund are: support to research, technology development and related projects to mitigate greenhouse gases emissions; support to projects that encourage development, use, and spread of renewable energy; project to support energy to the poor and project to replace equipments to high-efficiency equipments; support project to distribute city gas.

F. Pursuit of CDM Project

We are securing greenhouse gases emissions permits to prepare for the time when Korea is included in the category of countries that are obliged to cut greenhouse gases emissions and are pursuing a CDM project to verify the effects of greenhouse gases reduction on major projects. This involves approximately 500,000 tons of CO2 emissions in 10 years through distributing greenhouse gases cars, reorganizing mass transport system, and a LED replacement project.

G. Greenhouse Gases Mitigation Project

Seoul Metropolitan Government plans to pursue projects on protecting the climate as a comprehensive city environment policy including energy, disposals, green tract of land in parks, construction, and transportation. The city will present a guideline to achieve greenhouse gases reduction target for effective promotion of projects and to analyze and monitor the effects of greenhouse gases reduction for each project. Major greenhouse gases reduction projects are as follows:

- Renewable Energy Distribution Project:
Create renewable energy landmarks, establish zero-energy houses, build solar power facilities at idle sites such as sport facilities, and increase the use and spread of fuel cells.

- Project on Rationalizing Building Energy:
By improving facilities of buildings, rationalize the use of energy of buildings, set environmentally friendly construction standards, and provide incentives to building with high energy efficiency.

- Environmentally Friendly Transportation Demand Control:
Establish a low-energy and environmentally friendly transportation system such as CNG, implement no driving on a day of the week and a central bus lane system.

- Expand parks and green space:
Plant trees on rooftops, create a mass-scale park in the area north of the Han River, create Gwanghwamun Plaza, etc.
Cheonggyecheon is a stream running through the heart of downtown Seoul that has been restored to an environmentally friendly space where humanity and nature can peacefully coexist. Cheonggyecheon had previously been covered by concrete roads which provided access to hundreds of thousands of vehicles daily. The restoration project has converted a previously polluted and congested area into a new urban nature center with clean flowing water, thereby setting a powerful benchmark for major cities around the world who seek to restore their own urban streams.
Seoul endeavors to minimize waste and maximize recycling through the renewed use of the Nanjido landfill. This landfill was a previously useless lot which contained waste piled up to 100 meters tall. The Nanjido park has been transformed into a productive ecological park. Increasingly large numbers of citizens and tourists visit this eco-friendly park to enjoy the inspiring scenes of nature. In the future, Seoul will create an ecologically attractive site to visit by linking Nanjido Eco-park, the amazing scenery of the Han River and environment-friendly energy facilities. Additionally, Nanjido is a positive example of resource recycling, using methane gas produced in the Nanjido landfill under the park as a source of heat energy.
In focusing on its’ responsibility to provide citizens with convenience while remaining responsible to the environment, Seoul has reformed its’ public transportation system. The city has installed around 73.5km long (about 45miles) lanes for buses only, and introduced a transfer system that connects buses and subways. This encourages citizens to use public transportation as they can travel to most anywhere in Seoul for approximately 1 US dollar. Additionally, Seoul is striving to improve the air quality in the city through replacing vehicles in the public sector with hybrid vehicles and increasing the number of CNG buses.
Seoul has endeavored to connect its fragmented parks and green spaces, as well as create green ways linking the suburbs to downtown. As a result of this effort, the city of Seoul has expanded its green space by 27%. Green spaces are being formed in a variety of ways, such as by removing barrier walls to create school parks, transforming rooftops into gardens, and converting fragmented plots into small parks.