Govt to seek better climate solutions at Bali conference

Tony Hotland, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Host Indonesia wishes to see a fresh and superior set of agreements arise from the momentous conference on climate change to be held this December in Bali, which will seek to interlock all nations in tinkering with the Kyoto Protocol to assure the environmental accord's future.

State Minister for the Environment Rachmat Witoelar said Tuesday the event was of great importance in responding to the alarming reports of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which foretells of the environmental implausibility of an inhabited world by around 2070.

"Now is the (time to gain) momentum. The UNFCCC reports pose an urgent pressure, under which, if states don't behave, we are all going to die," Rachmat told a discussion at The Jakarta Post's bureau.

He said the upcoming Bali climate conference is expected to improve the Kyoto Protocol, the implementation of which is faltering despite it having come into effect in February 2005.

Ratified by 140 nations and with the world's largest polluter, the United States, refusing its participation, the Kyoto Protocol aims at pushing developed nations to cut their emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases blamed for global warming by 6 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.

It includes mechanisms that allow Annex I economies to meet their targets by purchasing emissions reductions via financial exchanges, such as through the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, or earn them through projects which reduce emissions in Non-Annex I economies under the Clean Development Mechanism.

In practice, this means Non-Annex I economies have no emissions targets, but when an emissions reduction project is implemented in these countries, they receive carbon credits that can be sold to Annex I buyers.

Significant polluters such as the U.S. and Australia, which has a per capita pollution rate 4.5 times higher than the global average, have refused to ratify Kyoto, insisting to do so would harm their respective economies. They also claim it is unfair that developing nations such as China and India are exempt from obligations under the accord, despite them both emitting sizable quantities of greenhouse gases.

"Our objective is to make the Bali talks as effective as possible in engaging all signatories of the Kyoto Protocol, such as China and the U.S., because emissions reduction isn't going to work out without all nations partaking," Rachmat said.

Environmental activists have been consistently campaigning to promote awareness and action against global warming, which is said to have already started affecting lives in many parts of the world. It is believed global temperatures could increase by as much as two percent each year.

Indonesia is viewed as prone to the negative consequences of such climate change. Experts have observed that drastic temperature changes have already begun harming the country's staple agriculture sector as rainfall rates and drought seasons become more erratic.

Rachmat said Indonesia, which has one of the world's fastest rates of deforestation, was key to mitigating global climate change through its ability to facilitate reforestation projects.

"In this scheme, we want our efforts in fixing and conserving the forests to be well rewarded. Say, give some dollars for some hectares of forest (we will renew). We have a plan to replant four million new trees. We have the area but not the funds," he said.