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How Indonesia finally earned nod from Norway for climate fund
After 10 years, Indonesia finally confirms that carbon emission and deforestation have declined
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Norwegian Ambassador to Indonesia Vegard Kaale (Courtesy of Norwegian Embassy in Jakarta/-)
I
em>Indonesia’s environment minister, Siti Nurbaya Bakar, and her Norwegian counterpart, Ola Elvestuen, announced last month that Indonesia was finally set to receive the first part of a US$1 billion payment pledged by the Norwegian government to preserve its vast tropical rainforests. The Jakarta Post’s Kharishar Kahfi and Dian Septiari sat down with the Norwegian Ambassador to Indonesia Vegard Kaale about the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) partnership and other fields of cooperation the two countries have to mitigate climate change.
Question: It has been almost 10 years since the signing of the REDD+ deal between Indonesia and Norway. Why did Norway eventually agree to pay the first payments to Indonesia?
Answer: Indonesia and Norway started the partnership almost 10 years ago and what Norway did was committing $1 billion if Indonesia reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. This is a cooperation we also have with other countries, so this is a national climate initiative.
Indonesia is one of the biggest partners we have, Brazil is also one of our biggest, and there are a couple of other countries as well.
In order to support this significant policy reform and the implementation of it, it is needed for Indonesia to reduce deforestation. Norway was willing to invest around 20 percent of this $1 billion to build up the necessary institutions to prepare for this result-based payment, so we have some work to do. So we have worked closely on this with the Indonesians for many years.
With this latest agreement, from now on Norway will start paying for verified emissions reduction in Indonesia, so we have to verify the numbers.
The reason that they agreed to start doing this now is twofold: Indonesia has for the first time confirmed that carbon emissions from deforestation declined in 2016 to 2017; and Indonesia and Norway have also agreed on the routes to determine how many tons of CO2 Indonesia can be paid for.
