RI WISHES TO LEAD IN ADDRESSING CLIMATE CHANGE'S IMPACT by Fardah

    Jakarta, Oct. 5, 2009 (ANTARA) - It was quite an 'unusual' demonstration when several Harvard University students in Boston greeted President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and even referred to him as 'Climate Change Hero'.

       Yellow and pink posters with messages reading "Thank You Indonesia", "Harvard Says Indonesia's Our Climate Change Hero", "President Yudhoyono World Climate Change Leader", "The Earth Our Future, Thank You Yudhoyono", were carried by the students outside their campus in Boston, the United States, on Sept. 29, 2009, when Yudhoyono arrived at the campus to speak before Harvard's faculty members, ANTARA's correspondent reported from Boston.

      Dominic, one of the students, said that Indonesia had made a great contribution to the efforts to deal with climate change by convening world leaders at the Bali Summit on climate change two years ago to discuss ways to manage global warming.

      "What Indonesia has done is really of great significance because, after the Bali summit on Climate Change, world leaders continue to meet and are going to meet again in Copenhagen, Denmark," Dominic said.

     The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was organized in Nusa Dua, Bali, on December 3-14, 2007, to start formal negotiations on a global climate regime for the post-2012 period and on a 'Bali Roadmap' that sets out an agenda for these negotiations. 

       The conference attended by delegates from 189 countries, set an end-2009 deadline for completing the negotiations to allow time for governments to ratify and implement the future climate agreement by the end of 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol's first commitment period ends. It happened that a few days before speaking at Harvard University, President Yudhoyono sent a video recorded statement to the UN Climate Change Summit meeting which was held in New York, on September 22, 2009. 

       In the recorded statement to the Summit on Tuesday (Sept. 22), President Yudhoyono said, the upcoming Copenhagen conference must conclude with an agreement that ensures a secure climate future for all and there must be no gap after the expiry of the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol in 2012. 

       "Remember: we can negotiate about the climate, but we cannot negotiate with the climate. We cannot ask the climate for more time," the president said. 

      "Copenhagen is our time to seize the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to launch the post-2012 climate agreement." Indonesia had made climate change a key priority in its national budget for 2010, reaching half a billion dollars, which includes preservation and expansion of the country's tropical rain forest cover, he said.     

      He had also initiated, along with 10 other tropical rain forest countries, the Forest-11 joint cooperation, to ensure that their forests would be a key part of global climate solutions, Yudhoyono said in the UN Summit attended by around 100 world leaders. 

         "There is a historical responsibility that must be translated into deep cut emissions. This also should be transformed into willingness to help those who are vulnerable to the impact of climate change to adapt to it," he said. To this end, developed countries must take the lead in the global effort to combat climate change, while developing countries should also engage in much broader actions to go beyond business as usual, he stated. 

      As agreed in the Bali Action Plan, the nationally appropriate mitigation actions should be truly supported by technology, financing and capacity-building, in a measurable, reportable and verifiable manner, Yudhoyono said. Meanwhile, in the Climate Change talks in Bangkok, which just concluded, Indonesia's target of reducing carbon emissions by 26 percent in 2020 got a positive response from participating countries.

       "The appreciation is the international community's recognition of Indonesia's resolve to deal with climate change. President (Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono) has conveyed a statement at the proper time and place as the climate change talks entered a very critical phase," the chief of the post-2012 working group of the National Climate Change Council (DNPI), Tri Tharyat, said in a press statement issued on Sunday (Oct. 4). 

      At the G20 Summit held in Pittsburgh, the United States, last month, President Yudhoyono said Indonesia had voluntarily set its short-, medium-and long-term targets of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from 2020 to 2050.

     He said several international non-governmental organizations described as "a very promising development" the Indonesian president's initiative and hoped the developed nations would be more serious in handling climate change issues.

       Home to the world's third largest area of tropical forests, Indonesia can reduce its carbon emission by more than 2.3 giga tons, Forestry Ministry's Climate Change Working Committee (Pokja) chairman Wandojo Siswanto said last September. 

      "We have prepared two demonstration actions as part of Indonesia's preparations to face Reduction Emission from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) which is to be honed further at the 15th conference of parties (COP) in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December this year," Wandojo said. 

     He said the demonstration actions would be conducted in Central Kalimantan with the assistance of Germany and in Berau district, East Kalimantan province, with the assistance of The Nature Conservative (TNC). 

      According to Wandojo, one of the purposes of the demonstration actions was to to calculate the potential of carbon stock in Indonesian forests. Forestry Minister MS Kaban said he was optimistic that REDD would be beneficial for Indonesia which has been able to protect its forest through various trees planting activities. 

      Last September, Indonesia held a soft-launching of the establishment of Indonesia Climate Change Trust Fund (ICCTF), aimed at making the country more active in its efforts to reduce the impact of climate change. Despite the government's initiatives and promises, however, Southeast Asia Greenpeace is of the opinion that the Indonesian government's efforts to reduce carbon gas emission are still insignificant.

      "The efforts of the Indonesian government to reduce the impact of climate change are not significant," Southeast Asian Greenpeace Forest Campaigner Bustar Maitar told ANTARA in Jakarta, on September 10, 2009. 

      Bustar explained that some of the Indonesian government's policies contradicted its commitment to minimize the impact of climate change. 

       The government policies concerned were among others permits to open more access for tree felling and peat land exploitation for oil palm plantations as well as paper and pulp industries. He pointed out that Forestry Minister MS Kaban had ever issued Annual Action Plan (RKT), permitted 14 companies in Riau to cut more than 100,000 hectares of forest for the interest of paper and pulp industries. 

       Greenpeace has urged the Indonesian government to keep its commitment to reducing the impact of climate change by halting forest cutting activities, halting permission to open peat land for oil palm plantations, and promoting clean technology in the country's industries.***3*** (F001/A/HAJM/17:10/a014)