Various environmental issues caused by the quick economic development in China, Japan and South Koreaas, the major powers of the East Asia, have been aggravating in both local and global levels in the past decades. An improvement of people's consciousness and behavior on environment is an indispensable way to resolve environmental issues. This study concentrates on analyzing the actual conditions of environmental consciousness as well as the pro-environmental behaviors in the East Asian countries, and then exploring the possible framework for environmental cooperation. In particular, this paper figures out how the demographic attributes influence people's environmental consciousness using “The East Asian cross-national survey on consciousness toward culture, life, and environment” data collected in 2011. The significant distinctions in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean consciousness toward the present environment and its change, pro-environmental behaviors, the social actors of environmental preservation, and environmental cooperationhave been disclosed by data analysis. Moreover, it has become clear that the difference in cultural background and social system brought a great diversity in people's attitudes and the self-responsibility toward the environmental issues. The formation of an East Asia environmental cooperation framework is difficult at the present stage because of a remarkable gap in people'sconsideration, but an effective method for promoting environmental cooperation should be carefully examined.
