Environmental civic activist, 16th Vice Minister of Environment (2017-2018) and executive chair of the National Council on Climate and Air Quality
| Life | 1963 |
| Era | 현대 |
| Clan | 죽산 안씨 |
An Byeong-ok (安秉玉, born 1963) is a civic activist turned 16th Vice Minister of Environment and a member of the Juksan An clan. He was born in Suncheon, South Jeolla, in 1963, graduated from Suncheon High School and earned a bachelor's (1984) and master's (1986) in oceanography at Seoul National University, then a doctorate in applied ecology (2002) at the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany. As he is a living person, this page records only his public career.
In the 1990s he was a researcher at the Ecology Institute of Duisburg-Essen (1992-2001) and at the Korea Pollution Research Institute (1997-1998). In the 2000s he served as deputy director of the Citizens' Institute for Environmental Studies (2002-2006), secretary general of the Korea Federation for Environmental Movements (2007-2008) and co-representative of the Energy Citizens' Solidarity (2007-2008), and advised the government as an expert member of the Presidential Commission on Sustainable Development (2005-2008). In 2015-2016 he sat on the Ministry of Environment's Central Environment Policy Committee and the policy evaluation committees of the Korea Forest Service and Meteorological Administration.
From 12 June 2017 to 26 August 2018 he served as 16th Vice Minister of Environment under the Moon Jae-in government. He then served as co-head of the preparatory group for a national body on fine dust and as executive chair of the National Council on Climate and Air Quality (2019), and is introduced as a professor in the AI Convergence School at Hoseo University and a member of the energy innovation subcommittee of the 2050 Carbon Neutrality Commission. Wikipedia's lower box shows predecessor and successor entries for chair of the Korea Environment Corporation, but the text does not describe that post, so it is not covered here. His career, moving between civic activism, policy advice, government and academia, marks him as an environmental policy specialist working on climate and air-quality issues.
He was deputy director of the Citizens' Institute for Environmental Studies, secretary general of the Korea Federation for Environmental Movements and co-representative of the Energy Citizens' Solidarity, and advised the government as an expert member of the Presidential Commission on Sustainable Development.
He served as 16th Vice Minister of Environment from 12 June 2017 to 26 August 2018, preceded by Yi Jeong-seop and followed by Bak Cheon-gyu.