Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan (JP/Wendra Ajistyatama)

Indonesia has asserted its commitment in contributing to climate change mitigation efforts despite sluggish progress made nationally at this year’s United Nations climate talk in Katowice, Poland.

Speaking at the Conference of Parties (COP), which was attended by Poland’s President Michal Kurtyka and delegates from hundreds participating country, Environment and Forestry Minister Siti Nurbaya Bakar said the country’s value and purpose would make it possible for Indonesia to fulfill its promise made under the Paris Agreement.

“We can’t allow any efforts to renegotiate the Paris Agreement. We ensure our goodwill in reaching tangible results in Katowice,” Siti said on Wednesday, according to a statement from the ministry.

“At the same time, we hope to support your leaderships by working together constructively with other parties [in order to reach the global commitment on climate change].”

After the 2015 UN Climate Change Summit in Paris, Indonesia pledged in its nationally determined contributions (NDC) to reduce its emissions by 29 percent, or by 41 percent with international support, against the business-as-usual scenario by 2030.

While nations struggle to agree on a playbook to implement the Paris commitment, Indonesia has been criticized for not doing enough to realize its pledges.

Deforestation is still reportedly rampant as businesses, the government and the people engaged in land conflicts.

In order to fulfill such a commitment, Siti added that the Indonesian government had issued a number of relevant regulations as well as made other related efforts, including acknowledging indigenous people’s rights and increasing people’s access to the forest through social forestry scheme.

Siti’s sentiments were echoed by Coordinating Maritime Affairs Minister Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, who also came on stage at another discussion during the conference. Climate change had been a priority for Indonesia for the last several years.

“Don’t you ever think that we don’t care about the environment. We understand this would affect future generations if we don’t handle it well,” Luhut said.

He said the government has allocated US$19.9 billion of the state budget to achieve the national action plan to adapt to climate change from 2016 to 2018.

One of the sectors focused on by the government was forestry, where the government had limited the issuance of new permits for palm oil plantation.

“The government is currently formulating a financing scheme to boost smallholders’ palm oil yield through the replanting program in hopes that production will increase by two-fold within the next five or 10 years,” he said.

Yuyun Harmono of environmental watchdog Indonesian Forum for the Environment (WALHI) appreciated the ministers’ statement during the conference, highlighting efforts made at grassroot level through social forestry mechanism.

“However, we should note the implementation of such a program across the country has been very slow,” he said.

As of Friday, the Environment and Forestry Ministry had issued social forest permits for around 2.27 hectares of land across the country. Initially, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo set a target of 12.7 million ha for the social forestry program (which was later revised to 4.3 million ha, as stated by Siti) by the end of next year.

Yuyun also highlighted the lack of elaboration on the country’s attempt to cut emissions in the energy sector in its official statement during COP24, especially by phasing out coal as the country’s source of energy.

“The government should stop constructing coal-powered power plants and focus more on the development of renewable energy.”

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