Rae Kwon Chung is professor emeritus at the Incheon Institute for Convergence Science and Technology, working on climate change solutions. He is a member of the Board Director for Climate and Energy of the Ban Ki-moon Foundation and Chairman of the International Award Committee of the Global Energy Prize established by the President of Russia. He is also currently adviser to the Chairman of the High-Level Experts and Leadership Panel on Water and Disasters (HELP), which reports to the UN Secretary-General.

Rae Kwon Chung proposed the idea of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) under the Kyoto Protocol to allow developing countries to initiate GHG emission reduction projects on their own initiative. Chung was the lead author of the Technology Transfer Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). For this he received in 2007 a personal copy of the Nobel Peace Prize, which was awarded to the IPCC.

Previously, he was the Ambassador of the Republic of Korea for Climate Change and also served as Principal Advisor to the UN Secretary-General and as Director for Environment and Development for the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN ESCAP). Rae Kwon Chung is currently adviser to the Chairman of the High-Level Experts and Leadership Panel on Water and Disasters (HELP), which reports to the UN Secretary-General.

He studied at the Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul/Korea and at the Georgetown University in Washington/DC in the USA.