No Need for Indonesia to Prioritize 26 Pct Carbon Reduction
No Need for Indonesia to Prioritize 26 Pct Carbon Reduction
28 April 2011
published by www.english.kompas.com
Indonesia — The government does not need to prioritize the target of reducing carbon dioxide by 26 percent in 2020 as Indonesia does not belong to a group of countries required to reduce their carbon emissions, an official said.
“We are not a carbon emitter but a carbon absorber thanks to the vast area of our forests, not to mention our sea,” Head of the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) Dr Sri Woro said at a workshop on the impact of sea surface rise on Indonesias coastal environment here on Wednesday. Also present at the workshop was Research and Technology Minister Suharna Surapranata.
Under the Kyoto Protocol, Sri Woro said Indonesia was a non-annex 1 country which deserved to receive compensation from greenhouse gas emitting countries listed in annex 1. The annex 1 consists of 41 developed countries listed as carbon dioxide emitters.
The target of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 26 percent in 2020 would cause the growth of the Indonesian economy to contract according to experts that had calculated the capacity of the Indonesian forestry sector, she said. She alleged that the government came under pressure from certain quarters at global level when it set itself the high target of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 26 percent in 2020.
“They claimed that Indonesia was the worlds third largest emitter after China and the United States. Unfortunately, they based their claim on data in 1997 when large forest fires induced by El Nino happened in Indonesia,” she said.
She said the claim was not fair because it was based on forest fires in 1997 rather than average annual forest fires in the country.
