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More open Indonesia-Australia trade needed for climate progress, experts say
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Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (right) receives President Joko “Jokowi“ Widodo on March 5, 2024, for a bilateral meeting at the 50th ASEAN-Australia Special Summit in Melbourne, Australia. (AFP/Penny Stephens/ASEAN-Australia Special Summit 2024)
E
xperts have encouraged Indonesia and Australia to alter their trade policies to promote the more open exchange of goods and services to help scale up climate action, as both countries continue to be among the world’s largest carbon emitters.
Speaking at a public discussion organized by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Jakarta on Tuesday, Professor Ross Garnaut of the Australian National University said that many countries, including Indonesia and Australia, had made too little progress in mitigating climate change since the international community set emissions reduction targets through the 2015 Paris Agreement.
“Despite the fact [that] we are making some progress, we have to acknowledge that the national commitments do not yet add up to [climate change] solutions. And what’s even more challenging is that national commitments are not yet being met,” Ross said.
Indonesia and Australia have pledged to reach net-zero emissions by 2060 and 2050, respectively. Nonetheless, little progress has been made in reaching these goals, as both nations continue to engage in economic activities that significantly increase global emissions, such as being among the world’s biggest coal exporters. Australia and Indonesia are also major global suppliers of liquified natural gas (LNG).
Read also: Sustainable and just transition a must in ASEAN climate action
The challenges faced by both countries were further exacerbated by the rising trend of protectionism in developed countries, Ross said, which threatened to undermine trade expansion and sharpen the rivalry between the United States and China.
He argued that keeping trade open between both countries and within the Asia-Pacific and Southeast Asia more generally would be key to successfully transitioning to a zero-carbon economy, as the nations could exchange environmental commodities while making use of their respective comparative advantages.
