Indonesia’s leading climate change advisor said yesterday he thinks global consensus on climate change cannot be reached, but hinted at a national strategy currently underway that would allow Indonesia to move forward on tackling the effects of environmental degradation without waiting for another round of international negotiations.
“We have prepared for the eventuality of a non-binding agreement by looking for strategies that go beyond [what was achieved at Copenhagen,]” said Rachmat Witoelar, the head of the Indonesian Council on Climate Change, which has executive power over national climate change policy. Mr. Witoelar was speaking to members of the Foreign Correspondents Club in Jakarta shortly after returning from a trip to India, where he held several closed-door meetings with his climate change counterparts in Delhi.
Indonesia – an archipelagic nation with vast forest cover and huge natural resource deposits – is one of the countries that climate change scientists say will be hardest hit by rising CO2 levels, with the poor most likely to suffer from effects such as flooding, deforestation and rising food prices due to failed harvests.
Despite the high expectations prior to December’s climate change talks in Copenhagen, the summit failed to produce a legally binding agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which is set to expire in 2012.
Participants and environmental observers say the talks were not a total failure since they marked the first time so many world leaders came together to discuss the climate change issue.
But Copenhagen also revealed the difficulties of reaching consensus among nations unwilling to go beyond what their domestic politics will allow, said Daniel Murdiyarso, a senior scientist at the Center for International Forestry Research, a global organization focused on environmental conservation.
“The spectrum of debate is getting broader and broader, but climate cannot wait any longer,” said Mr Murdiyarso, referring to the expansion of a mechanism initially aimed at reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) in return for financial incentives.
At Copenhagen, the United Nations-supported scheme was upgraded to REDD-plus, which allows companies or forest owners to use financial transfers to improve forest management, plant trees and rehabilitate degraded land to conserve carbon stocks produced by the forests.
REDD-plus is generally seen as a better scheme because it can benefit countries that are already protecting their forests rather than just those with high rates of deforestation. What it does not resolve, however, is where financing for the scheme will come from and how it will be doled out.
Political will is also a major sticking point, said Jonathan Wootliff, head of corporate accountability at Reputation Partners, a corporate communications firm based in Chicago. He was speaking about one of the biggest challenges to reaching an agreement that involves politicians with limited terms debating benchmarks and regulations that will take years before producing results. “The political reward is very difficult to reap,” he noted.
After two weeks of negotiations, the Copenhagen summit produced an accord that nations pledged to sign onto by January 31. Currently, 55 of the 192 countries that are members of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC), the process for debating a new climate strategy, have pledged their support, including the European Union.
Their promises to curb domestic CO2 emissions are estimated to account for nearly 80 percent of the reduction requirement, but Mr Witoelar has called the deadline “soft” since it only required countries to voice their willingness to participate in the agreement without submitting strategies on how they would do so.
He said Indonesia has gone further in drafting climate mitigation strategies than other countries in the region, namely China and India, which has taken centrestage at the international climate change talks.
Indonesia was the first developing country to announce emissions cuts targets of 26 percent by 2020 from current levels – the target hits 41 percent with international assistance. China and India, on the other hand, have promised to reduce their carbon intensity – which means a slowdown in emissions growth – by 40 percent and 20 percent respectively.
Given what appears to be a strong commitment from Indonesia, it could be an influential voice for promoting climate change initiatives in the developing world, said Mr Wootliff. But domestic politics, such as ministerial bickering and a president who has allowed political distractions to keep him from making the environment a priority, are hampering further discussion.
Internationally, the United States has been blamed for its lack of commitment and finger-pointing which contributed to the unraveling of the climate change talks in Copenhagen.
Mr Witoelar said what transpired at Copenhagen gave him little faith that an upcoming forum in Mexico will come any closer to achieving world consensus on the climate.
In the month since Copenhagen ended, Mr Witoelar has held talks with environmentalists around the globe. He said Indonesia is drafting its own national strategy rather than wait for action in the international arena, and spoke about potential offered at the sub-national level.
As an example, he referred to California, which pioneered vehicle emission standards later adopted by the US Environment Protection Agency and green building codes that set the foundation for buildings worldwide. Mr Witoelar hinted at the possibility of participating in future summits such as the Governors’ Global Climate Summit, which brings together leaders at the state and provincial level to discuss ways in which they can reduce emissions and green their economies.
Indonesia offers lots of opportunities at the sub-national level, said Fitrian Ardiansyah, the programme director for climate and energy at World Wildlife Fund Indonesia. He was referring to projects in Borneo and Sumatra that have shown initial signs of success. Last month, Australia agreed to provide $26 million in grants to the provincial administration in Jambi, Sumatra, to develop begin calculating the amount of carbon stored in the surrounding forests.
Several Indonesian companies have also begun selling carbon credits in the hope that even if REDD is not put into force they will be able to trade the forest offsets on the voluntary market.
Many local leaders are eager to learn more about how they can develop their own REDD schemes, but they need education and training. Many of them say they are confused by talk of mitigation and adaptation, and the big question is still how much money they can get, said Mr Ardiansyah.
