Indonesia will lobby other Southeast Asian countries to adopt the Copenhagen Accord at the upcoming ASEAN meeting in Vietnam, as only Jakarta and Singapore have done so, a source said.
The 10 members of ASEAN will convene from April 8 to April 9 in Hanoi, during which officials said the group would issue a joint statement to respond to the Copenhagen Accord initiative.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Teuku Faizasyah told The Jakarta Post that senior officials would run a
series of meetings ahead of the summit to prepare a text of joint statements, among others on climate change.
A source said Indonesia wanted all countries in ASEAN to adopt the Copenhagen Accord as 111 countries of the 190 parties to the UN climate talks had already submitted emission cut targets.
“We hope all ASEAN countries follow measures by Indonesia and Singapore to associate with the Copenhagen Accord,” the source told the Post.
Indonesia, the first developing country to voluntarily commit to emission reductions, pledged to slash emissions by 26 percent by 2020 funded only by a state budget of Rp 83 trillion.
Indonesia says if developed nations provided a further Rp 168 trillion, the country would increase cuts to 41 percent, the highest in the region.
Neighboring Singapore pledged to cut emissions [growth] by 16 percent by 2020. Both Indonesia and Singapore have adopted the Copenhagen Accord, making the promised emission cut targets binding for the two countries.
Experts say that ASEAN countries, with a combined area of 4.5 million square kilometers and an average per capita income of US$496, were vulnerable to the impact of climate change.
ASEAN established a climate change working group that is tasked with drafting a joint statement.
The Copenhagen Accord was issued last year after participants at the UN climate conference failed to reach a consensus on a much-expected legally binding treaty.
The accord, which was only a note for the conference, requested parties submit emission cut targets and associate it with the accord.
Forty Annex I (developed nations) and 33 non-annex (developing nations) have submitted reduction targets to the UN, with 64 of these countries have associated themselves with the accord.
Another 35 countries have associated with the accord but have not submitted emission cut targets.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s climate change adviser Agus Purnomo said that legal status of the Copenhagen Accord would not be changed although most of the countries supported the accord.
“There should not be new negotiations on the Copenhagen Accord as some countries fear,” he said.
“Indonesia will only agree if climate talks, including in Mexico, return to two tracks of negotiations on the Kyoto Protocol and the Long-Term Cooperative Action [LCA],” he said.
The Kyoto Protocol working group would discuss emission cut targets for developed nations from 2013 as the first commitment to a 5 percent emission when the protocol expires in 2012.
The LCA negotiation will focus on global emission cuts by both developed and developing nations to maintain temperature rise not exceeding 2 degrees Celsius.
