W

hy should we care about climate change? We know it is happening, but is the issue important enough to wake us all up from our sleep?

Climate change is the greatest market failure the world has seen, according to Sir Nicholas Stern, who told The Guardian in 2007 that '€œthe problem of climate change involves a fundamental failure of markets: Those who damage others by emitting greenhouse gases generally do not pay'€.

Aside from being one of the largest greenhouse gas emitters in the world, largely due to its massive forest degradation, Indonesia is not even among the top 10 largest emitters of carbon dioxide for its energy sector, according to the European Commission.

But, as Stern said, '€œThe problem of climate change is global, hence, the response must be a collaboration on a global scale'€.

The Indonesian Climate Change Sectoral Roadmap, issued in 2009, identifies climate change hazards threatening the archipelago, including the rise of sea levels, the rise of surface temperature and extreme weather patterns. But, is this report interesting enough for the government to act promptly?

Issues surrounding climate and the environmental have been overshadowed by economic concerns.

Politicians and officials would rather pay attention to more popular political issues such as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) or the Master Plan for the Acceleration and Expansion of Indonesian Economic Development (MP3EI).

In spite of growing evidence of the negative impacts of climate change, not everyone is feeling them directly.

They fail to see any immediate threat. Not surprisingly then, adaptation and mitigation efforts for climate change are often delayed or, at worst, completely ignored.

It is human to be concerned about something more basic, concrete and urgent, such as the need for food, clothing or housing. Add to this the problem of governance and corruption, and our lives become as complex as they are. This leads to the fundamental question: Do we still have room in our minds to care about climate change?

For the Maldives, an island nation in the Indian Ocean and the smallest country in Asia, which stands on average a mere 1.5 meters above sea level, climate change is no longer a wake-up call in the middle of the night. It is the alarm signal of a sinking boat.

The island is sinking.

But what kind of impression does the Maldives'€™ situation leave with most Indonesians?

Most believe climate change is happening elsewhere but not here. Others say it will happen in Indonesia sometime in the future, not just now. The few who understand the gravity feel helpless.

It is human to delay building the dams when the flood is not yet coming.

Indonesia is neither an ignorant country in combating climate change, nor is it a visionary that has realized its low-carbon plans yet. Indonesia has set an ambitious target of reducing its 2010 level of greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 26 to 41 percent by 2020.

It has issued policies, regulations, action plans and studies. The government has signed dozens of international cooperation agreements.

But underlying questions remain. How is this information interesting to the public? What is the economic relevance to them? Will this make businesses run better or worse?'€

In 2011, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono issued the Climate Change Action Plan in collaboration with the government'€™s 2005-2025 development plan. If climate change is as appealing as economic development or new business opportunities, the action plan would have prompted some actions.

Unfortunately, investment in combating climate change is mostly unprofitable, and many believe it could potentially end in failure.

The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) in China and India, for example, requires lengthy bureaucratic procedures to operate before it generates profit.

This makes it susceptible to corruption. Some CDM programs are nothing more than a scheme to sell carbon credit to developed countries, while others endanger food and ecological cycles for the sake of renewable energy.

Climate change will never be good business. It is a disaster.

However, low carbon practitioners should never give up. They have to keep trying to revive investment. This is where the Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs) come in.

NAMAs is a national instrument to reduce emissions and gives co-benefits to other sectors, including in economic, social and infrastructure development.

NAMAs aims at providing incentives for green investment to be more integrated and inviting, encouraging private investment and, at the same time, trying to fix the failures of CDMs. It enables the public to see climate change as a promising business.

So much for international innovative pilot projects. What about its sustainability?

Indonesia should also focus on the domestic capacity that it is already good at, and multiply the capacity to reach an ambitious outcome through incentives.

Altering climate change as an opportunity for good investment through NAMAs may take a long time to prove, but it is worth a shot. It is better than giving up. As a wise man once said: '€œWe need to be a little deluded just to stay motivated'€.

After recent extreme climatic events in Southeast Asia, including a snowfall in North Vietnam and Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, are we about to lose faith in climate change?

The writer is senior project officer at Mitigation Momentum Indonesia, a partnership between the Energy Research Center of the Netherlands (ECN) and the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry.