Targets Will Be Met By Slashing Forest and Peat Emissions: Indonesian Climate Delegates

Belinda Lopez, Jakarta Globe 18 Dec 09;

Copenhagen. Forest and peat industries are set to slash emissions in the next eleven years, Indonesian delegates revealed Thursday night, following speculation about how the country would meet its voluntarily commitment to cut back emissions by 26 percent before 2020.

Forestry emissions would be reduced by 13.3 percent, while peat would fall by 9.5 percent, with energy, transportation, waste and agriculture sectors also making minor emission reductions under Indonesia’s voluntary commitment.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono reiterated a further commitment to reduce Indonesia’s emissions to 41 percent with additional international funding at the UN talks on Thursday. Delegates later revealed the main reductions would again be in forestry and peat emissions, a total 13.5 percent of the extra 15 percent reduction.

Reducing emissions by 41 percent would come at a cost of Rp 168.3 trillion ($17.8 billion), a government report obtained by the Jakarta Globe revealed. This would include Rp 85 trillion ($9.1 billion) required to reduce emissions by the extra 15 percent, a sum Indonesia earlier indicated it would seek from the international community.

Earlier on Thursday, Australia, France, Japan, Norway and Britain, along with the United States, pledged a $3.5 billion fund to kick-start the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation scheme (REDD). It aims to encourage developing nations to preserve forests by measuring and giving an economic value to the carbon saved from deforestation. Under the scheme, the saved carbon will be sold as ‘credits’ to investors and industrialized nations with higher emissions.

“This will be good for the start, but of course we need more,” Wandojo Siswanto, the lead Indonesian negotiator for REDD, said.

Environment office to lead efforts to cut emissions
Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post 17 Dec 09;

State Secretary Sudi Silalahi insisted that the State Minister of Environment Office lead the country’s efforts to meet emissions cut target set by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

“It will be under the coordination of state minister of environment office,” Sudi told The Jakarta Post on the sidelines of the UN climate summit on Thursday.

Indonesia has pledged to cut emissions by 24 percent by 2020 using the state budget but will increase the target to 41 percent if rich nations provide financial assistance.

The government said that emissions cut target would be fulfilled in forestry, energy and waste sectors. Only waste management currently falls under the supervision of the state minister of environment office.

The ministerial office has long complained about the lack of coordination among the departments responsible for climate change issues.

The Ministry of Energy and the Ministry of Forestry have each formed a special unit to deal with the climate change.

Yudhoyono has set up a national council on climate change (DNPI) as a focal point for climate change issues, but its coordination role in the face of the sectors related to climate change issues has remained unclear. Former environment minister Rachmat Witoelar chairs the council.

The DNPI has taken over many climate change-related programs from the state minister of environment office.

Indonesia has roadmap to meet pledged emissions cut: Dino
Adianto P. Simamora, Jakarta Post 17 Dec 09;

Indonesia claims to have completed a detailed roadmap on how to meet its emissions cut target, on official says.

“We have made a roadmap on how to meet emissions cut target and details of the fund needed to achieve it,” presidential spokesman Dino Patti Djalal told The Jakarta Post on the sidelines of climate summit on Thursday.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in his speech before world leaders attending the UN climate conference did not elaborate Indonesia’s efforts to meet the target.

Indonesia has pledged to reduce 26 percent of emissions by 2020 with state budget and increase the target to 41 percent if rich nations provide financial assistance.

Questions have been rife, however, as to how the Indonesian government can meet such a high target.

REDD Faces Defining Moment at Copenhagen Summit
Belinda Lopez, Jakarta Globe 18 Dec 09;

“Still here, Pak?” Agus Purnomo, head of Indonesia’s National Council on Climate Change, was asked at 2:30 a.m. on Friday at the Bella Center, the official venue for the UN climate talks in Copenhagen.

“Still here,” Agus replied, wearily.

While other delegates in crumpled suits sought refuge and sleep on couches throughout the center, Indonesian negotiators worked into the early hours with other international representatives, leaving only to take a shower at their hotel and return.

Observers reported no real progress from plenary meetings held late on Thursday night and into Friday morning, a process to be repeated as the Jakarta Globe went to print early on Saturday morning.

“Negotiations are not going well,” Fitrian Ardiansyah, a World Wildlife Fund campaigner in Indonesia, said on Friday. The battle lines had been clearly set between the rich and poor, with the Group of 77 developing nations and China leading the fray.

Indonesia positioned itself as the developing country with a moderate voice in discussions. The nation’s lead negotiator on deforestation, Wandojo Siswanto, reiterated his desire to achieve a “realistic strategy for” Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation — the scheme aimed at assisting developing countries to preserve forests.

Many suggest that REDD will be the only legally binding agreement to emerge from the Copenhagen summit.

Indonesia has “common ground” with the G-77 and China, Masnellyarti Hilman, deputy minister for the environment, acknowledged on Thursday night. “But of course, Indonesia would like to have a deal here.”

“We’ve tried to do more than we have to, in terms of a target in REDD emissions and on [monitoring, reporting and verification]. This is our offer,” she said.

MRV became something of an impasse at the talks. China has been reluctant to subject its emission-curbing actions to independent international scrutiny, while the US has made MRV a condition of mobilizing $100 billion in financing for developing nations by 2020.

“For without such accountability, any agreement would be empty words on a page,” read the text of a speech by US President Barack Obama, who appeared at the climate talks on Friday.

Masnellyarti said, however, that Indonesia recognized the importance of accurate and transparent emissions data.

“How can we count reductions [in emissions] if we don’t monitor them?”

In his address to the plenary session on Thursday, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said Indonesia was willing to have its strategy and progress open to international scrutiny.

“Developing countries have to worry about their development and lifting millions out of poverty, and their budget is often strangled by the financial crisis,” he said. “But that is no reason to avoid transparency .”

Concerns Grow Over UN Forest Scheme
Belinda Lopez, Jakarta Globe 18 Dec 09;

Copenhagen. A world away from the official climate talks are the forests of the world’s developing nations. Agreements may be made (and unmade) in carpeted conference halls by world leaders, but it is local forest communities who will now be on the frontline of the fight against deforestation — and the many ways governments and companies may be able to make a quick buck in the process.

The small beacon of hope for a legally binding text at the climate talks was the Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation plan. REDD is a UN-backed scheme that seeks to put a price on the environmental damage caused by forest degradation and allow developing nations to sell “credits” in exchange for not chopping their trees down.

The great hope is that the income generated by these credits will be sufficient to replace the cash earned by the loggers, plantation companies and slash-and-burn farmers who are destroying the archipelago’s pristine jungle.

Discussions over REDD during the climate talks have been stalled by disagreements over whether such a scheme should be managed by national governments or by smaller provinces in “subnational” agreements, Wandojo Siswanto, Indonesia’s lead negotiator for REDD, said on Friday.

With its decentralized government, Indonesia supports giving a limited degree of autonomy to local governments to handle some aspects of REDD projects, Wandojo said.

“Biodiversity is not evenly distributed,” he said, referring to the fact that the heavily forested areas are to be found in Papua, Kalimantan and Aceh.

Indonesian delegates noted this week that Papua alone had more than five million hectares that could be demarcated as forested lands under REDD — comprising about 50 percent of the forests to be preserved in Indonesia.

Stibniati Atmadja, a research fellow at the Center for International Forestry Research in Bogor, ttended the Copenhagen talks. She will be observing the implementation of REDD in forest communities in Indonesia as part of a Cifor’s comparative, three-year study across Asia, Africa and Latin America.

“A lot of people and local governments at the district level don’t really understand the logic of REDD, how it fits into climate change and how it fits into their daily lives,” she said. “There hasn’t been a concerted effort in Indonesia to communicate across different levels.”

Despite the government’s acknowledgement that local communities should benefit from any REDD scheme, Stibniati says there is wide potential for misuse of funds, potential conflicts about land ownership and disagreements on how carbon emissions should actually be measured.

“I have not seen the kind of political will in Indonesia that is necessary to ensure that the REDD projects actually benefit communities rather than cause them more harm,” she said.

American investigative journalist Mark Schapiro has reported on such conflict in Brazil between indigenous communities whose families had lived in forests for generations and those enforcing carbon restrictions.

“Suddenly they were getting arrested for hunting or cutting down one tree,” he said. “If not properly handled, a lot of people are concerned that their long-term ability to survive in the forest will be threatened.”

Schapiro is also concerned about the complexities of so-called carbon accounting — everything from measuring the variable rates of carbon in different tree species to ensuring that book-keeping doesn’t become too creative.

“If you talk to law enforcement people who are looking forward, they are seeing potential for criminality emerging in the way that forests are being monetized,” Schapiro said.

Yet Brazil considers itself to be the most sophisticated of developing countries in its approach to the implementation of REDD.

“Brazil distinguishes itself from Indonesia because it sees itself as having better controls to protect trees,” he said.

Wandojo, who said Brazil was more advanced in implementing REDD, said Indonesia would maintain a central database of projects to ensure they were properly managed.

Advocacy organizations Human Rights Watch and Greenpeace both released reports this month raising alarm bells about the country’s ability to retain control of such a process, given the illegal deforestation they claim is taking place right under the central government’s nose.

HRW claimed half of all Indonesian timber from 2003-06 was logged illegally, with rampant tax evasion taking place. Greenpeace accused the largest palm oil producer Sinar Mas of flouting environmental standards while falsely presenting itself as a sustainable company. Environment Minister Gusti Muhammad Hatta denied Greenpeace’s claims during the climate summit.