Save Our Souls

The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Fri, 06/08/2007 7:10 AM  |  Opinion

It is alarming to learn that Indonesia persists with its business-as-usual attitude toward climate change. We have already experienced the impacts of rising temperatures in the form of a series of natural disasters, from flooding in Jakarta and other parts of the country to the disappearance of a number of islands. And yet, it is still business as usual.

A recent World Bank-sponsored report reveals that Indonesia, the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gasses after the United States and China, is embarrassingly far behind other countries in its efforts to deal with the impacts of climate change. Worse, it is failing to make the most of the several options available that would help the country deal with these impacts.

According to the report, much of Indonesia's greenhouse-gas emissions -- about 85 percent -- are produced by land clearance and deforestation, while the rest come from the rapidly growing energy sector, and, to a lesser extent, agriculture and waste.

The report only confirms what we already know -- that deforestation has reached an alarming level, and yet the government seems powerless to stop it, or at least keep it to a minimum. We are concerned that within the next 20 to 50 years, we won't have any virgin rain forest left.

The report also confirms our worries that our much touted energy efficiency and conservation programs are not working. We know we have so much in the way of geothermal resources, and yet only a tiny proportion is being exploited: only 807 megawatts out of a potential 27,000 megawatts, according to the author of the report. A similar situation applies in the case of the micro-hydro energy sector.

Most recently, the government launched its biofuel drive, and to that end, state-owned oil and gas firm Pertamina started selling biodiesel at some of its gas stations, only to stop doing so a few months later after it found out that it's uneconomic.

All of this is disheartening for those of us who care about the environment, who are concerned for our land and water resources, and for the futures of our children. As the report points out, as an archipelagic nation with some 17,000 islands, Indonesia is particularly vulnerable to rising sea levels. Accordingly, we need to do something to prevent this from happening before it is too late.

If we continue with business as usual, it will not be the people in North America or Europe who suffer most. It will be those who live in these small islands along the equator. If temperatures continue to rise, and they have been rising by around 0.3 degrees Celsius annually since the 1990s, according to the report, Indonesia will lose large chunks of its productive coastal plains to the waves. If this happens, millions of people will need to be relocated.

Aware of the catastrophic future that could await us, we need to arrest the temperature rise by reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. But doing this alone is obviously impossible. Even if we reduce our greenhouse-gas emissions, but people in other parts of the world fail to do so, the upshot will be the same. So, it will take a global effort to deal with climate change.

Indonesia is now well-positioned to drive global efforts to curb greenhouse-gas emissions as this country is set to host a United Nations high-level meeting on climate change in Bali in December. So much hope has been pinned on Indonesia as the host of the meeting, which is expected to kick off the initial discussions on the framing of a new global mechanism to fight climate change after the Kyoto Protocol lapses in 2012.

It is therefore commendable that Indonesia intends to make the Bali meeting inclusive, involving nations that are not party to the Kyoto Protocol, especially the United States, as any global effort to combat climate change will be meaningless without the participation of the U.S, the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gasses.

We should capitalize on U.S. President George W. Bush's willingness to join the global effort, although green activists are skeptical about his seriousness. We should welcome Bush's proposal for major emitters of greenhouse gasses, including big developing countries like China and India, to make firm commitments to limiting greenhouse gases.

Actually, Indonesia, as the third largest emitter of greenhouse gasses, could also contribute early on by committing itself to voluntarily reducing its emissions. For us, it should not be that difficult as much of our emissions come from the forestry sector. By dealing with deforestation, we will be able to reduce our gas emissions significantly.

By doing so, we will be killing two birds with the one stone: we will gain credibility in our role as chair of the upcoming UN climate change meeting, and possibly encourage more countries to commit to further emissions reductions, and, more importantly, by reducing our own gas emissions, we will be taking concrete action to reduce the possibility of future calamities befalling both ourselves and those who come after us on this planet.

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