Editorial to the special issue “Sustainable energy policies in Northeast Asia”

Paris agreement in 2015 made a great milestone toward the sustainable development worldwide. Based on the bottom-up, market- and performance-oriented mechanism, new climate regime on the Paris agreement provides the optimal path control for toward the below 2 °C target from pre-industrial levels by decreasing substantial GHG emissions. Unfortunately, the withdrawal of the USA from Paris Agreement may result in 13 GtCO2 higher than its original 56 Gt target (23% increase). Nonetheless, the strong commitment by China and pro-active participation of the Northeast-Asian countries made a new hope against the global warming. This special edition shall shed the light on the efforts by these countries based on the comparative analysis to result in the “Oriental Model” for the sustainable development and its energy policies. Especially, urbanization became one of the hottest issues for the special issue and the differentiated diverse efforts by the governments are much emphasized in this issue.