Indonesian team flies to China with low expectations for REDD discussions

Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post 2 Oct 10;

Doubts on the fate of the Indonesian government’s main agenda for the REDD scheme linger ahead of the departure of the country’s negotiating team to a climate change meeting in China next week.

Head of the team, Rachmat Witoelar said the outcome on reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, known as REDD, would depend on whether rich nations were ready to discuss their emissions cuts figures at the negotiation table.

“REDD could be one area of the negotiations that fails at this year’s talks,” Rachmat, who was President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s special envoy on climate change, told The Jakarta Post on Friday.

However, Rachmat said, in the event of failure, existing REDD projects in Indonesia would go on.

Earlier, Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan also voiced his pessimism toward a REDD agreement being met this year, despite a string of international conferences.

It then led the ministry to boost bilateral agreements to pave the way for richer nations to invest in REDD pilot projects in Indonesia.

The Tianjin climate talks, due to be held from Oct. 4 to 9, will be the fourth and last preparatory meeting ahead of this year’s annual climate change summit in Cancun, Mexico. The previous three, held in Bonn, Germany, this year, were largely cited as failures.

In Tianjin, negotiators from more than 190 countries are slated to discuss long-deadlocked issues on adaptation, mitigation, technology transfer, financing, emissions cuts targets and the REDD scheme.

“Divergence mostly on emissions cuts will still transpire, but we hope positive progress can be made on specific issues affecting vulnerable peoples, such as adaptation and financing,” Rachmat said.

The richer nations that are bound to cut emissions under the Kyoto Protocol until 2012 wanted developing nations to also take part in binding emissions reductions, he said.

The developing and poor nations rejected the demand, arguing that rich countries that had started polluting earlier should bear a greater portion of the burden.

With regard to adaptation, Indonesia had pushed for the establishment of a committee that would manage the disbursement of adaptation funds, he said.

“We could also push for an agreement on financing issues, including to ask for the disbursement of US$30 billion that was pledged by rich nations at last year’s Copenhagen climate summit,” Rachmat said.

Indonesia is a member of the 11 forest-rich nations that have placed a priority on the finalization of a REDD agreement, for example in terminology and financing sources.

The deputy chief of the international negotiations working group at the National Council on Climate Change, Eka Melisa, said Indonesia would continue guarding the talks so that the REDD scheme could be agreed upon by the conference of parties (COP) this year.

“We hope the COP in Cancun will agree on the REDD scheme, at least on its definitions and financial mechanisms,” she told the Post.

She said the Tianjin meeting could still be a stepping stone toward the main target of the climate change talks. “Tianjin will be another trust-building effort for the big outcome,” she said.

Indonesian Environmental Forum (Walhi) chief campaigner Teguh Surya said it would be no surprise if nothing came from the Tianjin talks. “From the start we have noted that the REDD scheme is not aimed at reducing emissions. It is only to shift the responsibility of reducing emissions,” he said.