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Cancun, a stepping stone to a new treaty
Before heading to Mexico for climate talks, Indonesia has said nothing about ambitions for a new treaty to restrain emissions, saying instead that the Cancun conference would serve as a stepping stone to seal a binding deal a year later
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efore heading to Mexico for climate talks, Indonesia has said nothing about ambitions for a new treaty to restrain emissions, saying instead that the Cancun conference would serve as a stepping stone to seal a binding deal a year later.
Indonesia’s chief climate envoy to the talks, Rachmat Witoelar, made a pledge that the country’s delegation to the two-week conference in the Mexican resort city, which begins Monday, will bring home results that would benefit national interests.
“If I can bet, [at least] there will be a decision on REDD,” he told a press conference about Indonesia’s Cancun agenda.
REDD, which stands for re-ducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, is an alternative plan to curb greenhouse gas emissions from forestry, which contributes some 20 percent of global emissions.
“If Cancun is still unable to resolve all issues on REDD, we at least expect a deal on a readiness phase,” Rachmat said.
There are three major REDD issue categories — the readiness phase, transformation and implementation. Once the conference agrees on the readiness phase, delegates hope to pave the way for forest nations, like Indonesia, to start UN-style pilot projects to reduce forestry emissions.
Full implementation of the plan, however, was expected to take place post-2012, after the Kyoto Protocol climate treaty commitment ends.
Rachmat argued that many rich countries, in addition to the 11 forest nation REDD supporters, would join the push for adoption of the REDD plan in Cancun.
Indonesia, home to the world’s third largest national rainforest area with 120 million hectares, is one of a few nations that have already run pilot projects using its own REDD version.
The biggest bilateral deal on REDD in Indonesia was signed with Norway when Oslo promised to provide US$1 billion if Indonesia could cut emissions by curbing domestic forest loss, which so far has reached over one million hectare per year.
Greenpeace Indonesia, which hailed the Indonesia-Norway REDD deal as a model for low-carbon development, has warned that the deal is in danger of being squandered unless actions were taken to protect it from industrial rainforest degradation caused by the oil palm and pulp and paper sectors.
The Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) predicted significant progress on the REDD deal in Cancun, saying the negotiators must find common ground for delicate details on how the scheme would work.
“Among the key issues that need to be addressed in Cancun is whether to include REDD [plus] as part of the UNFCCC,” said Louis Verchot, principle climate change scientist at CIFOR.
The UNFCCC stands for the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference, the organizer of the Cancun climate talks.
“Agreement on this would be significant because it would be a big step toward scaling up REDD [plus] as an officially recognized and politically accepted method of curbing carbon emissions,” Verchot said.
Many countries, including the US and Japan, had asked for bilateral meetings with the Indonesian delegation on the sidelines of the Cancun talks Rachmat said, adding that it was believed the two countries were likely to be among those interested in investing in Indonesian forest carbon projects.
“One of our aims at Cancun is to take benefit from the global climate conference and also from bilateral processes for national interests,” he said, adding that it was now far easier to ask for money from rich nations for reductions greater than required for mandatory emission cut targets.
In its position paper, Indonesia would still demand rich nations cut emissions between 25 and 40 percent based on 1990 levels.
However, Indonesia also agreed on sharing the burden of emission cuts with developing countries should on a voluntary basis.
Although Indonesia has pledged to cut emissions 26 percent using its own money by 2020, the emission cut target has been a deadlocked issue since the 2007 Bali climate talks. The 2007 Bali Roadmap agreed to reach a legally binding treaty on an emission cut target to be made in Copenhagen in 2009.
But the landmark Copenhagen climate talks — attended by over 100 heads of state, including from the world’s largest emitter countries such as the US and China — collapsed, producing only a political statement.
It is not clear whether the Copenhagen Accord would still be considered as documents to be tabled in the Cancun talks.
A new report by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) said that even if every signatory nation honored the pledge made in the Copenhagen Accord, carbon dioxide emission levels will still not reach the goal of 44 gigatons ton a year by 2020 — a level needed to limit global warming to
2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures.
This year’s conference in Cancun, set to be attended by representatives from 194 countries until Dec. 10, would likely not be attended by the presidents or heads of states from the parties.
However, the fight in Cancun is expected to be more difficult because some rich nations that had previously pledged to slash emissions, including European countries, have since been backpedaling partially because developing nations have yet to establish one voice for involvement in emission cuts.
Liana Bratasida, expert staff on global environment affairs at the Indonesian Environment Ministry, pointed out the most sensitive problems that may make it hard for the Cancun conference to produce a legally binding treaty.
“The trust after Copenhagen is still a problem, despite a series of conferences held this year,” she said.
The host country should have at least distributed the “expected outcome” if the conference aims for a legally binding treaty six months before the talks begin, Liana said, adding that it should be clear whether the documents set to be discussed in Cancun utilize the previous versions made in Tianjin, China or in Bonn, Germany.
The last formal meeting in Tianjin reportedly resulted in a setback compared to the previous three meetings held in Bonn this year.
“Overall, there is still optimism to reach packaged decisions as a pillar to reach a legally binding agreement in the Cape Town climate conference next year,” Rachmat said.
Indonesia’s key platforms
• Adaptation: Financing mechanism; The establishment of an adaptation committee; and the implementation of the Nairobi Work Program.
• Mitigation: Role and policies on land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF); and reformation on the clean development mechanism (CDM).
• Technology transfer: The establishment of a Technology Executive Committee
• Capacity building: Performance indicator on capacity building
Source: National Council on climate change
