Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Mon, 12/01/2008 10:33 AM
The Bali road map will be front and center in Indonesia's approach at the UN climate change conference in Poland this month, as it focuses on securing agreement for medium- and long-term targets for emissions cuts.
The position paper by the Indonesian delegation, led by environment minister Rachmat Witoelar, calls on wealthy nations to take the lead in cutting emissions.
The paper also addresses the importance of defining mechanisms for developing nations to take an active, voluntary role in emissions cuts, with wealthy nations providing financial aid and climate-friendly technology.
"We will push the agenda for a voluntary carbon market, adaptation fund, financial mechanism and technology transfers before 2012," Rachmat said here Saturday.
About 9,000 participants from 185 countries will take part in the annual climate change negotiations, to be held in Poznan from Dec. 1 to 12.
Among those scheduled to attend the conference's opening ceremony on Monday are UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Polish President Lech Kaczynski, Guyanese President Bharrat Jagdeo, Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt and Tuvaluan Prime Minister Apisai Ielemia.
"The need for real progress on tackling climate change has never been more urgent," Yvo de Boer, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) executive secretary, said in a press statement.
"The effects of climate change that science has identified are already weighing upon those most vulnerable, and who await the financial and technological resources they need to deal with these impacts."
The recommendations from the Poznan conference will be taken to Copenhagen at the end of 2009 and will come into force in 2013, a year after the end of the first commitment, the Kyoto Protocol.
Climate change could have a devastating impact on nearly one billion people living in and depending on forests unless immediate action was taken, researchers from the Bogor-based Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) warned.
The warning is made in the CIFOR report Facing an Uncertain Future: How Forests and People can Adapt to Climate Change, which will be launched during the Poznan conference.
The report sets out adaptive measures aimed to reduce the vulnerability of forests and forest-dependent communities.
"The first (measure) is to buffer ecosystems against climate-related disturbances like improving fire management to reduce the risk of uncontrolled wildfires or the control of invasive species," said Bruno Locatelli, a CIFOR scientist and lead author of the report.
"The second would help forests to evolve toward new states better suited to the altered climate. In this way we evolve with the changing climate rather than resist it."
WWF Indonesia warned that the Poznan conference should result in concrete actions as the severity of the impacts of climate change increases.
"A massive cut in emissions by rich nations is very urgent," WWF Indonesia climate and energy program director Fitrian Ardiansyah said.
