World environment ministers to meet in Bogor

Adianto P Simamora, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Ministers dealing with environmental affairs from 40 nations, including the U.S., will discuss ways to tackle global warming in an informal meeting in Bogor, West Java, this month.

The Oct. 23-25 meeting will be chaired by Indonesian State Minister for the Environment Rachmat Witoelar in his capacity as incoming president of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC).

Rachmat said the meeting would discuss a paper presented by Indonesia covering issues including post-Kyoto Protocol and the Reduction of Emissions from Deforestation in Developing Countries (REDD) scheme.

"We will listen to opinions and take input from the ministers on our paper, although this will not be binding (to our position at the conference in Bali)," he said after a meeting with senior envoys Ali Alatas and Emil Salim in his office Wednesday.

Emil is chairman of the Indonesian delegation to the UNFCCC, the world's main decision-making authority on climate change issues, to be held in Bali in December.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is scheduled to attend the Bogor meeting.

Minister Rachmat said the Bogor meeting would be the first step preceding the Bali conference with 40 ministers representing 191 signatory states of the Kyoto Protocol.

"The meeting would also build consensus for negotiation in the upcoming Bali conference in the framework of post-2012 Kyoto Protocol," he said.

The 40 ministers attending the conference come from (among others) the U.S., Australia, European and ASEAN countries.

Ministers from Brazil and Papua New Guinea, representing two of the world's largest tropical forested nations, would also attend the meeting.

Rachmat said the Bali conference would discuss heavier topics than in the previous UNFCCC meeting in Kenya last year.

"The Bali conference will discuss fresh aspects of post-Kyoto Protocol in 2012," he said.

The 1997 Kyoto Protocol requires rich nations listed in Annex I to reduce emission levels by at least 5 percent from 1990.

The United States and Australia, however, have rejected this emission reduction target.

Developing countries including Indonesia which ratified the protocol in 2004 are not obliged to reduce emission levels.

Minister Rachmat has said the Bali conference was expected to bear the so-called "Bali road map" with a scheme of financial incentives for avoiding deforestation.

Indonesia has joined lobby groups from forested countries to promote the REDD scheme at the Bali conference, with hopes to gain financial incentives for its huge areas of forest.

Indonesia currently has 120 million hectares of forest, the world's third largest after Brazil and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Indonesia, with other forested countries including Brazil, Cameroon, Costa Rica, Colombia, Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea and Peru, has set up a coalition to slow the loss of forests to combat climate change.

In return, these countries hope rich nations will provide them incentives for these efforts.

Indonesia is also set to plant 79 million trees to help tackle climate change.