Editorial: Green earth vs greenback

Wed, 12/03/2008 11:10 AM  |  Opinion

Penaah, a small island in Riau Islands province, has gradually been disappearing over the last three years due to a rise in seawater. Elsewhere in East Java, people of Madura Island only see the surface of the sea -- no longer can they spot Gresik Putih Isle.

Environmentalists say the country has lost at least 23 uninhabited islands in the past decade and may give up 2,000 more to global warming by 2040.

Inhabitants of some major cities have grumbled about a rise in temperature. As if to confirm their complaint, climatologists have said there has been an increase in temperature of between four and six degrees Celsius in southern Sumatra, Java and Central Sulawesi.

All the facts only support the much-vaunted argument that global warming is effecting Indonesia, regardless of skeptics who see the worldwide move to fight climate change as paranoia.

As many as 186 nations who share a growing concern about climate change are gathering in Poznan, Poland's fourth largest industrial city, for the UN conference which is expected to bring the world community closer to a new pact to deal with global warming. The countries are expected to ink the new agreement in Copenhagen next year.

Indonesia, which hosted the conference last year, plays a major role in building up a new and binding framework that must come into force after 2012. As part of the troika of countries hosting the previous, ongoing and upcoming negotiations, Indonesia expressed optimism that the ambitious regime will replace the Kyoto Protocol, in spite of the looming financial crisis across the globe.

The confidence has received a morale boost with the election of Barack Obama as the next president of the United States. In his absence, he has won praise from the delegates of the Dec. 1-12 talks for his long-term emissions reduction program, but nobody knows if it will materialize when he steps down in four or eight years.

Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, however, believe failure to act now will only precipitate the doomsday on the planet. Huge droughts and floods, cyclones with increasingly more destructive power, pandemics of tropical disease, dramatic decline of biodiversity and increasing ocean levels are future disasters scientists have envisioned will occur if nations fail to tackle this issue.

Indonesia has a lot at stake in making the negotiations a success. The country has experienced changes in its weather pattern, which has been blamed for a long drought in some parts of its territory and will in turn wreck havoc in its food security program. One scientist estimates a 10-15 percent decrease in agricultural productivity due to weather uncertainty, which may worsen if global warming goes unabated.

But the government's commitments have not translated into policies in the field. There is a gap between the two as evidenced in the oil policy that encourages the dependence on fossil fuels. In addition, the recent decision to lower the subsidized fuel price must be considered contradictory to the fight against climate change because it will woo people to buy more cars, which therefore will increase carbon emissions unless massive biofuels are available.

The government's inaction against rapid conversion of forests into plantations poses another question about its noisy campaign to save the planet.

With deforestation accounting for up to a fifth of global emissions, the government allows companies to tear up areas of pristine forest and burn carbon-storing peatlands. These activities do not just disrupt measures to cut greenhouse gas emissions. They also threaten the rich biodiversity and the livelihood of Indonesia's local communities, currently home to the third largest forest nation in the world.

At one point the government had unveiled an ambitious plan to develop a mass biofuel industry, but the lack of incentives -- and political will -- has discouraged investment in the renewable energy sector.

It is the temptation of money the country is desperately seeking amid the economic doldrums that may have prompted the government to compromise its green policy.

More than just a matter of ethics, the commitment to the fight against climate change is about responsibility to future generations here and all over the world.

In the absence of consistency, Indonesia's prominence in the global fight against climate change will not mean anything but a bogus diplomacy.

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