RI sees environmental protection as global responsibility

Antara News, Sat, May 14 2011

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London (ANTARA News) - Indonesia sees environmental protection as global responsibility and supports global commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as mandated by the Kyoto Protocol, an envoy said.

The responsibility accorded with Indonesia`s commitment to mitigate the impact of climate change, Indonesian Ambassador to Germany Eddy Pratomo said before German Environment Minister Norbert Rottgen and a number of foreign ambassadors and German politicians, students and journalists at a tree-planting function in Berlin recently.

Spokesman of the Indonesian Embassy in Berlin Purno Widodo said in an emailed statement to ANTARA correspondent in London on Saturday that Ambassador Pratomo had the honor to plant trees, along with the German environment minister during the function.

Ambassador Pratomo, who is also the Indonesian government`s senior adviser on the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) added the function was a symbol and proof of environmental protection which was the common responsibility of the international community.

Meanwhile, Norbert Rottgen called on the world community not to stop planting trees to make the quality of life better.

Seventeen trees were planted on 17 Juni Street in Berlin at the function which served as the closing event of a series of activities to plant a total of 64 `linden` trees on the street managed by the GAIA environmental foundation. The Indonesian Embassy in Berlin was one of the sponsors of the programm.

Editor: Priyambodo RH

IFC offers loans to reforest degraded land

Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Tue, 11/17/2009 9:23 PM

The International Finance Corporation (IFC), a private arm of the World Bank, has announced it will provide loans to local companies interested in reforesting degraded land, to reduce the impacts of climate change.

The IFC launched its sustainable-forest program on Tuesday, targeting to replant 250,000 hectares of damaged forest land — in Sumatra, Kalimantan and East and West Nusa Tenggara — within five years.

Restoring 250,000 hectares of forests could cut around 90 million tons of carbon emissions annually, which could be traded under the clean development mechanism (CDM) stipulated in the Kyoto Protocol.

“The program has several benefits; reducing greenhouse gas emissions, putting the land to a productive use and producing new jobs in rural areas,” IFC Indonesia for Sustainable Forestry program manager Kenneth Mac Dicken said Tuesday.

The program would provide a promising option to investors, as demand for forest products, including timber, would likely increase in future, he said.

“Expansion for new [production] forests will decrease because of pressure [to reduce] the high deforestation rate in Indonesia,” he said.

Replanting projects could be carried out on low-carbon stock areas such as grasslands, by planting fast-growing trees.

According to the IFC, there are around 96 million hectares of degraded land in Indonesia at present, at least 8 million hectares of which is coarse grassland.

The program aims to generate up to 90,000 jobs in rural areas.

Netherlands to buy carbon credits from Pontianak landfill gas flaring

On 14 June Ambassador Dr N. van Dam, together with the mayor of Pontianak, Dr H. Buchary Abdurrachman, witnessed the signing of the Emission Reduction Purchase Agreement for the Pontianak Landfill Gas Flaring Project, executed by project developer PT Gikoko Kogyo and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, in its capacity as a trustee of the Netherlands CDM Facility.

The Netherlands are buying an amount of 350.000 Certified Emissions Reductions from the Pontianak Landfill Gas Flaring Project. These reductions will help the Netherlands to meet part of its ambitious greenhouse gas reduction obligation under the Kyoto Protocol and reduce the global emissions of greenhouse gases.

The Pontianak Landfill Gas Flaring Project is the first project under the bilateral Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) cooperation between the Netherlands and Indonesia. The Netherlands and Indonesia entered into a bilateral CDM cooperation 2 years ago, with the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation under the CDM between the Ministry of the Environment of Indonesia Kementerian Lingkunan Hidup and the Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment (VROM) on 22 February 2005.

The implementation of this project for Landfill Gas Flaring on the landfill of the Municipality of Pontianak, TPA Batu Layang, will abate approximately 1.5 mln tonnes of CO2 equivalent during the proposed project life. This contributes to the greenhouse gas abatement goal of the United Nations Convention on Climate Change.

In addition to this global benefit, the project will contribute locally to sustainable landfilling and municipal solid waste management. Furthermore, this private sector investment in solid waste management demonstrates the commercial opportunities for sustainable municipal solid waste management as well as environmental and social improvements.

Weather agency, farmers must be involved in climate change policies: Experts

Tony Hotland, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Policies involving the national weather forecast agency and farmers must be enacted to enable Indonesia to adapt to the grave effects of global warming and evade disruptions in food provision, a climate change seminar has been told.

Scientists agree climate change has already begun unsettling the arrival of seasons and causing unseasonal fluctuations in temperatures, which are key to rice field cycles, agriculture and biodiversity.

With this in mind, experts agreed at a seminar Thursday that adaptation was as important as mitigation -- seen as more global and political -- in the battle against global warming.

Climate change is causing the arrival of seasons to be more erratic and tends to produce shorter wet seasons with more rainfall and longer dry seasons with prolonged water shortages.

As a result, Indonesia has much to lose given that rice is its staple food and most Indonesians work in the agricultural sector.

Head of the Agricultural and Climate Agency at the Agriculture Ministry, Kasdi Subagyono, said the adaptation measures would include drawing up a dynamic plantation calendar for each plant and natural condition, creating new varieties of plants resilient to barren weather and implementing efficient irrigation methods and water conservation.

"Upgrading the Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMG) so it can come up with more accurate and far-reaching forecasts, say for a year ahead, would help with the drawing up of the calendar. If this can be distributed to the farmers, it would make a big difference," he said at a seminar on biodiversity and global warming hosted by green group Kehati.

"We've completed some calendar drafts for some seasons and weather conditions and we're now trying them out in areas to seek improvement."

Kasdi said new varieties of rice, corn and potato should have shorter harvesting lives to match shorter wet seasons.

"So the farmers must be largely included in these efforts because we're depending on them more than ever," he said.

Indonesia has become an occasional rice importer due to frequent harvesting failures in the country's crops.

Rizaldi Boer from the Bogor Institute of Agriculture (IPB) said global warming had already damaged Indonesia's rice-harvest cycle, leading to decreased production capabilities.

"In Java, the cycle is 1.6 (harvests) per year compared to 2 some years before, meaning we no longer harvest rice twice a year. Outside Java, the cycle is even lower at 1.1 times," he said.

While most participants focused on the effects global warming would have on agriculture and food production, the seminar also discussed the ability of flora and fauna to adapt to changes. For example, it is expected fish populations in Indonesia will move southward to Australia due to sea current changes.

Global warming has taken the world by storm as one of the most discussed topics over the past two years.

The Kyoto Protocol, under which 38 industrialized Annex I countries excluding the U.S. and Australia vowed to cut greenhouse gas emissions, seems to be moving in an uncertain direction.

Triggered by greenhouse gases, which are predominantly the result of mass energy production and deforestation, trapped in the atmosphere, global warming is destroying biodiversity in the world's seas, killing animals and plants and triggering the outbreak of viruses and bacteria that pose global threats to human health.

Suryo Wiyono and Antonius Suwanto, both IPB lecturers, said at the seminar that current research indicates the escalation of plant pests and cholera outbreaks correlate directly with temperature increases.

Environmental groups have called on the government to actively propose reforestation projects to Annex I nations in the carbon trading scheme and switch to using renewable sources for energy production.

Indonesia is the world's third biggest greenhouse gas emitter after the U.S. and China, the result of forest fires and unbridled deforestation.

World applauds climate change recommendations

By Deutshe Presse Agentur, dpa

Governments have unanimously welcomed the Bangkok Report on global warming - which warned that there were only eight years left to act but said reducing emissions could be achieved with about 0.1 per cent of the world's annual economic output.

The third report by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released in Bangkok Friday, said that global emissions must start declining by the year 2015 to prevent the world's temperature from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius over pre-industrialised levels - a threshold expected to pose serious risks to human beings.

Bringing carbon dioxide back down to acceptable levels would cost less than 3 per cent of global gross domestic product in total, or less than 0.12 per cent of global GDP per year, by improving energy efficiency and expanding the use of renewable energy alternatives, the report said.

"It is now time for the rest of the international community to follow our lead and commit to ambitious reduction targets," European Union Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said.

The 27-member EU earlier this year vowed bold action in the fight against climate change, setting a binding target of slashing greenhouse gas emissions by at least 20 per cent by 2020, followed by a 30-per-cent reduction in emissions provided other industrialised nations like the United States follow suit.

US officials emphasised the importance of this latest report, but said their country would not adopt corrective actions that would seriously damage the economy.

Jim Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said that spending 3 per cent of GDP on combatting global warming was untenable.

"Well that would, of course, cause a global recession," Connaughton told reporters. "No leader in the world ... is going to be pursuing a strategy that would drive their economies into a deep recession."

German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel said Friday that a climate catastrophe can be prevented if the world acts quickly, echoing comments by a number of European officials Friday.

"We have no time to lose," Gabriel said, appealing for a more widespread use of technology needed to increase energy efficiency and expand the production of bio-fuels.

"It's important that we set the right course at the climate conference in Bali in December," he said in reference to negotiations planned on the Indonesian island for a new international treaty.

The so-called Kyoto Protocols, which have subjected member countries to targeted emissions reductions since 2005, must be renewed by the year 2012. Friday's report provided a solid basis for the Bali negotiations on a follow-up treaty, according to Yvo de Boer, the UN's top climate official.

De Boer said the next treaty should lay down firm targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but added that he did not believe emerging economies like China, India and Brazil were ready to accept binding goals.

He told a news conference in Berlin that large developing countries could make a contribution through their own energy efficiency programmes and inclusion in carbon trading schemes.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon echoed De Boer's comments, urging governments to demonstrate the political will to work out a comprehensive solution to the climate problem.

"A comprehensive package on the way forward needs to be urgently launched at the IPCC in Bali in December," Ban said in a statement. "I call on all parties to the Convention on Climate Change to work towards this aim with the political will to decisively abate climate change and its impacts on our planet and people."

But officials in the US, which did not sign the Kyoto Protocols, said that until emissions are brought under control in developing countries like China and India, nothing will change.

"Some two-thirds to three-fourths of (the) growth is going to come from developing countries," primarily due to the generation of electricity from coal, said Dr Harlan Watson, the senior US climate negotiator.

The IPCC report suggested that one way to mitigate climate change is switching from coal to gas for electricity, but US officials made clear they expect coal to remain king.

"China will use its coal to develop, the United States will use its coal as part of our overall energy profile," Connaughton said.

Reporters repeatedly asked whether the US would support any of the target emission levels suggested in the IPCC report, similar to the EU's aim for one of the lower levels.

The US officials said such targets were meaningless, since reductions in one country could be offset by increases in other countries, like China or India. Instead, they referred to President George W Bush's targets set in January for reductions, including a push for more use of renewable, less polluting fuels like ethanol.

"In America, culturally, our people are just much more responsive" to specific amounts, Connaughton said. Americans say: "Tell me how much I need to achieve in a particular sector by when," Connaughton said.

New Zealand on Saturday said the IPCC report showed that action to counter global warming is both affordable and practical.

"The report confirms that with technologies that are available today, and that are currently being developed, we can cut emissions and avoid the worst projected impacts of climate change," David Parker, a cabinet minister dealing with the environment, said in a statement.

RI calls on U.S., China, India to join next global climate treaty

The Jakarta Post

COPENHAGEN (AP): Big polluter nations such as the United States, China and India should sign on to the next global climate treaty that will replace the Kyoto accord on greenhouse gas emissions, Indonesia's environment minister said Tuesday.

"I don't see how they cannot join," Rachmat Witoelar said during an environmental conference in Copenhagen. "The most important thing is whether these countries are aware that there is a danger posed by climate change."

His Danish counterpart, Connie Hedegaard, who was hosting the two-day conference of European and Asian environmental officials, concurred.

"It is a European priority to get as many countries and contributors on board as possible," Hedegaard said. "Including of course China and India."

She said she hoped delegates would back Denmark's efforts to achieve a new climate treaty at a U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen in 2009.

Witoelar called that goal "realistic," adding that action was needed soon. "We cannot quarrel while the boat is capsizing."

The Kyoto Protocol, a U.N. treaty which expires in 2012, requires 35 industrial nations to cut emissions of carbon dioxide and other harmful gases collectively by 5 percent from 1990 levels.

The U.S, which is responsible for about one-quarter of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, has rejected Kyoto, saying it would hurt its economy. It also objects that the protocol allows exemptions for rapidly industrializing economies like China andIndia.

China, the world's biggest producer and user of coal, is expected to overtake the U.S. as the world's largest carbon dioxide emitter within the next several years.

Witoelar said Indonesia was already seeing the effect of climate change in devastating droughts and flooding. He declined to say whether the country would agree to emissions cuts under a new climate treaty, but said Indonesia would cut down on carbondioxide emissions by halting uncontrolled land-clearing fires that routinely send a blanket of choking haze to neighboring countries.

"I'm aware of statistics that we are emitting CO2 because of forest fires. So we'll stop the forest fires," he said. "It's as easy as that."

Carbon credits: Incentives for biofuel development

The Jakarta Post

Achmad Syafriel, Research Analyst

The forthcoming implementation of the carbon credit system under the Kyoto Protocol will support the development of the biofuel industry going forward.

Starting next year, many countries are expected to reduce their emission levels below the quotas that have been set individually for each country. This is mandated by the Kyoto Protocol, which was signed and agreed to by 141 countries nearly 10 years ago.

The participating countries agreed to reduce six greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, sulfur hexafluoride, HFCs, and PFCs), associated with global warming.

The Kyoto Protocol is an amendment to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), an international treaty that brought countries together for the purpose of reducing global warming and mitigating the effects of temperature increases.

Bear in mind, the world's average temperature has increased by nearly one degree Celsius over the last 150 years since the commencement of industrialization. The provisions included in the Kyoto Protocol are legally binding on all the countries that have ratified it.

The Kyoto Protocol requires industrialized countries between 2008 and 2012 to reduce emission levels to, on average, 5.2 percent below where they were in 1990. The treaty sets quotas on the amount of greenhouse gases that each country can produce in order to achieve emission reductions of up to 8 percent for regions such as the EU. On the other hand, the treaty still permits emission increases for countries such as Australia and Iceland. However, to date the U.S. and Australia have refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol.

Under the Kyoto Protocol, every activity that reduces oxygen and produces emissions will be penalized. Meanwhile, activities that add oxygen and reduce emissions will be rewarded with what are called carbon credits, i.e., certificates awarded to countries that successfully reduce emissions. These carbon credits can be traded, and one credit is equivalent to one ton of CO2 emissions.

The Kyoto Protocol will be applied in practice by setting emission quotas for companies that typically produce a lot of emissions, such as paper mills and mining firms.

The penalties for such companies could be huge if they fail to engage in oxygen-producing activities. However, companies that exceed their emission quotas will be able to, and will also be required to, compensate for their polluting activities by buying carbon credits. Meanwhile, companies whose emissions are below their quotas will be allowed to sell their carbon credits.

As industrial development in many countries continues, the level of emissions is expected to increase. Going forward, more companies may need to buy more credits to compensate for the pollutants they make. This will push carbon credit prices up and make them a very expensive commodity. In turn, many companies will be encouraged to engage in environmentally friendly activities that could yield carbon credits.

The production and use of biofuel is regarded as a green energy-producing activity. The logic is that the more biofuel is produced, the less fossil fuels will be used, and the lower the level of emissions produced.

Plantations are considered to be oxygen-producers. Thus, their development will yield carbon credits that will be in high demand by many companies.

This opportunity has been identified by many companies, thus partly explaining the influx of investment into the plantation sector in Indonesia and other countries that are promoting biofuel programs.

Next year, the Kyoto Protocol will start to be implemented. The burden on companies in high emissions industries, such as pulp & paper, mining, cement, steel, textiles and fertilizers, will be enormous. They will henceforth need to compensate for their polluting activities with carbon credits. These will be bought and sold on international exchanges, such as the Chicago Climate Exchange and the European Climate Exchange. Credit prices are expected to be high as many industries will probably exceed their emissions quotas.

So, the development of biofuel is not only a means of reducing dependence on fossil fuels, but will also provide a way for major industrial companies to gain access to carbon credits to compensate for their oxygen-reducing activities. The implementation of the Kyoto Protocol with its carbon credit system will provide another boost for the sustainability of the biofuel development program.

Tax for Industry that Produces Pollution

Friday, 20 April, 2007 | 16:41 WIB

TEMPO Interactive, Jakarta: The implementation of sanctions over industry that produce pollution will be more effective than a moratorium of new vehicle manufacturing. Industrial pollution, said former Coordinating Minister for the Economy Rizal Ramli, was one the causes of the green-house effect that affects global warming.

“There must be a financial sanction such as tax so that they reduce pollution gradually,” he said at the break of a discussion, “Settlement and Rehabilitation of Ecological Justice” yesterday (04/19). He responded to the plan of Environment Minister Rachmat Witoelar's proposal of moratorium of new vehicle production if air pollution could not be reduced.

So far, developed countries, said Rizal, have always accused Indonesia as the agent of global warming by virtue of deforestation. State and multinational companies that produced pollution and the greenhouse effect should have paid Indonesia for any pollution they created.

However, developed countries such as the US in fact refused to be blamed and to sign the Kyoto Protocol and Carbon Emission Trading (CET). CET is a policy which regulates that industry be given the maximum pollutant rate that is admissible. Should it be abundant, industry should compensate.

NININ DAMAYANTI

Govt embarks on massive reforestation program

Andi Hajramurni, The Jakarta Post, Makassar

The government has embarked on an enormous reforestation program in a bid to rehabilitate 59.2 million hectares of damaged forest throughout Indonesia, Forestry Minister Malam Sambat Kaban said Tuesday.

This year the government plans to plant 2 billion seedlings on two-million hectares of land along 318 river banks in all provinces in the country, Kaban said.

Speaking at a coordination meeting in Makassar, the minister said the government had earmarked funds amounting to Rp 4.1 trillion (approximately US$445 million) from the 2007 state budget to finance the program.

The planting activities will be conducted between September and October this year simultaneously throughout the country, he said, adding that the program would be launched by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Vice President Jusuf Kalla.

Kaban said that his ministry would soon tender the seedling procurement, urging owners of seedling businesses, including farmers, to prepare themselves.

He said that besides involving government institutions, the planting program would also involve timber estate (HTI) businessmen and forest concession (HPH) holders.

Both the HTI and HPH representatives will be entrusted to reforest 350,000 and 85,000 hectares of unproductive land respectively, he said, adding that state-owned forestry company Perum Perhutani would be assigned to reforest 200,000 hectares of land in Java.

The minister said that the only way to prevent further destruction of forests was through massive planting efforts. "There is no other way to revitalize our damaged forests, except through programs such as this," he said.

Kaban said the rate of forest destruction in Indonesia was 2.83 million hectares per year. As a direct result of this, some 59 million hectares of Indonesia's 120.35 hectares of forest have already been damaged.

He attributed the fast rate of deforestation to illegal logging practices, trade in illegal forest products, illegal mining, theft and forest fires.

As a result of the damaged forests, Indonesia suffered losses of about Rp 30 trillion per annum, not including the disappearance of rich natural resources, he said.

Kaban said forest destruction had also led to various natural disasters, including flooding, landslides and drought, due to the fact that forests could no longer function properly.

Andi Idris Syukur, head of the South Sulawesi Forestry Office, said the rate of forest destruction in South Sulawesi was currently 700 hectares out of 2.1 million hectares.

The forest destruction, Andi said, was caused mainly by illegal logging practices and forest fires as well as the conversion of forest land for residential complexes.

Australia pledges A$200 million to reforestation program

The Jakarta Post

CANBERRA, Australia (AP): Australia on Thursday pledged 200 million Australian dollars (US$161 million) to protect and replenish Asian forests - a move Prime Minister John Howard said would do more to combat climate change than the Kyoto Protocol on global warming.

The fund, which will be spent over the next five years, will aim to halve the rate of deforestation in southeast Asia, particularly Indonesia, by planting new trees, fighting illegal logging, delivering education about forest management and supporting industries that provide an alternative to timber production.

Britain, Germany and the United States will also join the fund, which will be managed by the World Bank.

Howard said 20 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions can be attributed to the destruction of forests, which absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Deforestation ranks second behind electricity production as a key cause of the world'scarbon dioxide levels, he said.

"What this initiative will do, in a shorter period of time, is make a greater contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions than, in fact the Kyoto Protocol," Howard told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.

One of the world's largest per capita producers of greenhouse gas, Australia has refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, which calls for steep cuts in carbon dioxide emissions among industrialized nations.

Howard, siding with U.S. President George W. Bush, who has also refused to join the treaty, says the treaty would disadvantage Australia's coal-driven economy by placing caps on its emissions while allowing energy hungry developing countries like China and India to pollute freely.

But opinion polls show Australian voters are increasingly worried about global warming in the lead up to federal elections later this year.

A longtime skeptic on climate change, Howard has been softening his stance on the issue.

Last month, the prime minister said Australia should put a price on carbon emissions, saying market mechanisms would be integral to any long-term response to climate change. The announcement was a reversal of Howard's previous stance that any moves to cap or price carbon dioxide emissions would effectively be a "carbon tax" that would cripple Australia's coal industry and slow the economy.

Indocement, IPB to farm jatropha

BOGOR (JP) : Listed cement producer PT Indocement Tunggal Prakarsa Tbk has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Bogor Institute of Agriculture (IPB) to develop a jatropha curcus plantation.

Under the MoU, the IPB will provide seeds while the company will grow the plant on 30 hectares of its land.

President director of Indocement Daniel Lavalle said that the program was aimed at increasing the use of alternative fuels in the company.

"This is in line with the government's program to increase the use of renewable energy and with our Clean Development Mechanism (CDM)," he said.

The CDM is part of the Kyoto Protocol and allows companies in developing countries to host greenhouse gas emissions reduction programs.

The host company then receives a certificate of emissions reduction from the United Nations executive body based on the amount of carbon reduction points that can then be sold to rich countries.

Indocement is the first Indonesian company to implement a CDM project and it has been listed at the executive board of the United Nations.

Jatropha curcas oil produces energy almost equal to that produced by diesel oil. --JP