President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was among 119 leaders who gathered in Copenhagen last week to help give the final push to the nearly collapsed talks, but his anticipated leadership remained sheathed.
What we heard was the near-heroic last-minute effort by US President Barack Obama and Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, together with leaders of three other big developing countries - Brazil, South Africa and India - to save the talks from collapsing.
These world leaders, through hours of fast-paced diplomacy last Friday, managed to broker a nonbinding "Copenhagen Accord" that caps global warming at 2 degrees Celsius from pre-industrialization levels and promises more aid to poor nations.
Although the deal is nonbinding and short of concrete steps to counter climate change, it is seen as a new start for rich-poor cooperation on climate change. It paves the way for continuing talks next year in Mexico City, which are expected to produce a binding agreement.
But what was missing here was the role of Indonesia. President Yudhoyono, who managed to break an impasse at the climate meeting in Bali two years ago, contributed little to the Copenhagen negotiations. He was simply left out in the last hours of negotiations.
Why was Indonesia left out? It was because Indonesia deliberately took the middle way. It did not side with either developed or developing countries. This position had been taken up since the Bali climate talks in 2007.
At the time, Indonesia as the host needed to balance the position of developed and developing countries to save the talks from collapsing. Indonesia managed to do that, producing the Bali Road Map.
The road map set a two-year timetable leading to Copenhagen to produce a legally binding international agreement, requiring further emissions cuts by developed countries. The new pact should have succeeded the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, whose first phase of commitment is set to expire in 2012.
Since Bali, Indonesia has been trying to play a role as a bridge between developed and developing countries. Because of this position, no one approached Indonesia. For developed countries, Indonesia was seen as a good boy, offering a commitment of greenhouse gas reductions of 26 percent from 2005 levels by 2020.
For developing countries, Indonesia did not provide any added value for their position in negotiations. Thus it was left out in the prominent negotiating block of G77, where China, Brazil, India and even Sudan were all active forces.
Indonesia could have played a role as a bridge in Copenhagen, but it seemed that neither rich nor poor countries needed a bridge. Obama chose to talk directly to leaders of the four big developing countries on the very last day. And such direct talks delivered results.
To be fair to Yudhoyono and the Indonesian delegation, although Indonesia did not play an important role as a bridge, Indonesia managed to gets its interests accommodated in the accord.
Point No. 6 of the Copenhagen Accord, according to Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa, is Indonesia's proposal on reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD).
It says, "We recognize the crucial role of reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and the need to enhance removal of greenhouse gas emissions by forests and agree on the need to provide positive incentives to such actions through the immediate establishment of a mechanism including REDD-plus, to enable the mobilization of financial resources from developed countries."
The Copenhagen Accord also recognizes the need for substantial financing to reduce emissions through REDD-plus, adaptation, technology development and transfer and capacity building, for enhanced implementation of the convention.
Therefore it is time for Indonesia to help prepare an established REDD mechanism acceptable to the global community, so that it can benefit financially from its efforts to reduce emissions by maintaining its forests and get enough funding to improve its degraded forests.
Indonesia also needs to evaluate its middle-way policy in the run-up to the next negotiations in Mexico. Learning from Copenhagen, the middle way did not provide the necessary stage for Indonesia.
