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Sustainable development guru seeks active Indonesian role on climate change
Jeffrey Sachs, the noted American economist now championing global sustainable development, on Wednesday urged Indonesia to take an active part to ensure success in ongoing international diplomacy over climate change, sustainable development goals and their international financing
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effrey Sachs, the noted American economist now championing global sustainable development, on Wednesday urged Indonesia to take an active part to ensure success in ongoing international diplomacy over climate change, sustainable development goals and their international financing.
Indonesia has a big stake in ensuring agreement in all these three separate negotiations, which should be concluded this year, Sachs told reporters, referring to conferences on global financing in Addis Ababa in July, the Sustainable Development Goals at the United Nations in September and on climate change in Paris in December.
The world's largest archipelagic state is most vulnerable to extreme changes in weather patterns and their impacts, including flooding, violent storms, rising sea levels and the loss of its rich biodiversity, he said.
'We hope for the Indonesian government's active engagement in all these negotiations,' he said prior to his meeting with Indonesia's Forestry and Environment Minister Siti Nurbaya. He was scheduled later to give a public lecture, focusing on how Indonesia could contribute, at the office of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
Sachs is key senior advisor to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who is pushing UN member countries to come to an agreement on setting the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) at the next UN General Assembly in New York in September. The SDG is an even more ambitious agenda than the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) it replaces.
The director of the Earth Institute at the Columbia University in New York has just published his latest work, The Age of Sustainable Development, in which he argues for countries to embrace sustainable concept based on three main pillars: economic growth, inclusive social development including equality and the protection of the environment.
He also heads the UN's Sustainable Development Solutions Network (UNSDSN), which counts on the support of more than 200 experts and leaders worldwide, and hundreds of universities from all around the world concerned with the challenges and the search for solutions.
For his own part, Sachs said he would propose the creation of a global fund for education and another for health at the Addis Ababa conference on global financing in July.
The SDG agenda very much tallied with that of Indonesia's new president Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo and therefore his presence at the SGD conference in September would be important, for Indonesia as well as for the success of the conference, Sachs said.(+++)
