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Indonesia, South Korea should work together on climate issues, expert says
There are plenty of opportunities for Indonesia and South Korea to work together in the green sector, including sharing greenhouse gas emissions reductions.
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A worker looks at a metal melting furnace at PT Krakatau Posco plant, an Indonesia-South Korea joint venture, in the Krakatau Steel industrial area in Cilegon, Banten in this file photo taken in 2015. Indonesia, like South Korea before it, is rapidly industrializing, but it also faces global pressure to transition to more environmentally friendly methods of production. (Kompas/Iwan Setiyawan)
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ndonesia and South Korea would do well to work together more closely on climate issues, an environmental expert has said, as President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo calls on the developed world to help the nation make the green energy transition.
With the threat of rising global temperatures, Indonesia is seeking international support in developing renewable sources of energy, even as the nation uses conventional methods of industrialization to spur economic growth.
But armed with its experience of rapid economic growth as one of the 20th century’s “Asian Tigers”, South Korea might just be able to impart valuable lessons for Jakarta.
Chung Suh-yong, the director of South Korea’s Center for Climate and Sustainable Development Law and Policy, said there were plenty of opportunities for the two nations to work together in the burgeoning green sector, especially on sharing greenhouse gas emissions reductions.
Chung said President Jokowi and his South Korean counterpart Moon Jae-in could strengthen bilateral cooperation that guarantees transfers of technology.
One of his suggestions is to have the Moon administration provide various technologies in the forestry sector for a certain period of time, after which the two partners could calculate the reduction of emissions between them and share the spoils under the emissions trading scheme.
“Indonesia can report [its reductions] to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and if there are some leftover [carbon credits], you can share that with South Korea,” he said in a recent workshop organized by the Foreign Policy Community of Indonesia (FPCI), in collaboration with Korea Foundation Jakarta.
