Indonesia’s Climate Change Diplomacy
In the middle of the Covid-19 storm that continues to ravage the world, we cannot afford to be careless in tackling another major issue that is a global battlefield: climate change.
The year 2021 is a strategic year for the future of the planet and humankind. In 2021, we will see whether nations across the global can keep the earth\'s temperature from rising above 1.5 degrees Celsius, as agreed in the Paris Agreement on climate change five years ago. Climate change diplomacy will pick up in 2021 because it has been delayed for a long time, and countries have been slow to keep their commitments since the Paris Agreement was adopted in 2015. Under President Trump, the United States even withdrew from the agreement.
To date, only about 50 countries have submitted ambitious emission reduction targets to the United Nations. The entities that are moving much faster than governments around the world are companies, mass organizations, NGOs and the younger generation. This is very worrying, because the window of opportunity to achieve climate stability is growing smaller.
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According to research, global emissions must be reduced by 50 percent during the decade spanning the 2020s to keep the earth\'s temperature rise below 1.5 Celsius. Global emissions must be cut by another 50 percent during the 2030s and must continue to decline a further 50 percent during the 2040s.
Fortunately, moving towards the end of 2021, a number of positive political, diplomatic and economic developments in the dynamics of climate change are expected.
Humankind is still very far from achieving these targets. Under the present economic practices and lifestyle of nations across the globe, the earth\'s temperature will rise by 3 to 4 degrees Celsius. Fortunately, moving towards the end of 2021, a number of positive political, diplomatic and economic developments in the dynamics of climate change are expected.
A number of major emission-producing countries have set their sights on becoming "carbon neutral" by 2050-2060, including China, Japan, Korea and South Africa. The US rejoined the Paris Agreement on President Joe Biden\'s first day in office, which immediately gave renewed energy to climate diplomacy. More than 1,000 multinational companies in the world have also set emission reduction targets through the science-based targets initiative (SBTi).
Weak commitment
This good momentum is certain to continue through 2021. However, in the midst of all this, Indonesia has still not moved.
In recent years, a number of developments have indicated that climate change is no longer a priority for the government. The National Council on Climate Change was dissolved, so there is no longer a unified national policy on climate change. The REDD+ agency that was formed afterwards has very little function, too. The climate change issue has been demoted to a bureaucratic matter at the level of director generals and directors.
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Without political pressure, these bureaucrats cannot take any meaningful action. In 2015, the Indonesian government announced to the international community that it would raise its emissions target from 26 percent to 29 percent by 2030. However, this commitment was abandoned and, as a result, now there is no blueprint, no action plan and no clear implementation. Meanwhile, different views and conflicts of interest plague a number of related ministries on the commitment to the 29 percent emissions target, that it is merely a target on paper. It is said that this difference in opinion exists even within the Environment Ministry.
Environmental activists, mostly students, display their message in front of "a human globe" formation to coincide with the global protests on climate change Friday, Sept. 20, 2019, at the University of Philippines campus in suburban Quezon city northeast of Manila, Philippines. Various environmental groups in the country are participating in what is expected to be the world\'s largest mobilization on climate change known as "Global Climate Strikes."
This emissions target is also contrary to the government\'s policy to increase the nation’s electricity output capacity by 35,000 MW, which relies primarily on coal, "dirty energy" that will actually result in increased carbon emissions. The 2025 target of increasing the share of new and renewable energy sources in the national energy mix by 23 percent is still stuck at 9 percent. Former energy minister Ignasius Jonan admitted he was pessimistic that the emissions target could be achieved, due to minimal investment.
Not surprisingly, Climate Action Tracker (CAT) has declared Indonesia\'s climate change policy to be “highly insufficient”. In addition, Indonesia is no longer visible on the global stage in climate diplomacy. At the Climate Ambition Summit in December 2020 to commemorate and review five years of the Paris Agreement, which was attended by more than 70 heads of state, Indonesia was represented by Foreign Minister Retno L.P. Marsudi who, in fact, has no authority over those sectors related to climate change like environment, industry, energy and others, especially as regards determining Indonesia’s emissions target.
Therefore, Indonesia must answer an important question in early 2021: Does it want to be a participant or to play a role as a mobilizer/pioneer/leader?
If it just wants to be a mere participant, it doesn\'t need to bother. We need only to send our representatives to attend a number of conferences, fill in the list of attendees during the hearings, raise our hands when there is a vote, and issue courtesy statements.
The government must set up a national mechanism on climate change, so its concepts and targets are applied in the form of real policies.
However, if Indonesia wants to be a driving force in this grand international struggle, it is an entirely different issue. Climate change must be promoted to the strategic agenda of the State Palace, no longer just at the ministerial level, and the President must lead it directly. The government must set up a national mechanism on climate change, so its concepts and targets are applied in the form of real policies. Policy options that can be initiated include carbon tax (economic value of carbon) and ecological fiscal transfers, and review land-use/concession permits (forestry, plantations, mining), which have a direct impact on floods, landslides, fires and other natural disasters.
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The government must also encourage Indonesia’s business community, including Kadin and Hipmi, to “go green” in their mindset. "Green" here is not just about forestry and plastics, but businesses systemically calculating and reducing carbon emissions in their activities and practices. The Indonesian business world must apply a new paradigm (that has already begun in international business) that cleaning emissions will increase – not reduce – business profits.
Green investment
The government also needs to boost "green investment", which will create more jobs than conventional investment, according to various studies. The reforestation and reduced deforestation programs must be expanded on a massive scale, as well as the programs on electric cars and zero-emission buildings. Investments in the new and renewable energy industry, which have been minimal so far, must increase drastically.
This picture distributed courtesy of Lara Henderson shows Kate Schapira, a 40-year-old senior lecturer in the English department at Brown University, sitting behind her a "climate anxiety" booth in a public space in Providence, Rhode Island on June 24, 2017. - In the melting Arctic, communities are racing to maintain their way of life. In the rising Pacific, residents are sounding alarm bells. And in Rhode Island, Kate Schapira and her husband are not having a baby. Fears about climate change are prompting worldwide action, but one knock-on effect in the United States is mounting anxiety about everything from plastics to class-based environmental disparities. For Lise Van Susteren, a Washington-based psychiatrist who has been studying the mental health impacts of climate change for 15 years, refusal to recognize the potential hazards is common for "people who are trying to deny that they too are vulnerable."
The 2019 Low Carbon Development Strategy outlined by the Ministry of National Development Planning (Bappenas), which states that Indonesia\'s economy could grow 6 percent while reducing emissions 43 percent, needs serious implementation so it does not remain just a good concept on paper. The government also needs to make efforts so the recovery strategy from the Covid-19 crisis – with a stimulus budget of Rp 695.2 trillion in 2020 and Rp 403.9 trillion in 2021 – is aligned with the long-term goals of sustainable development. For example, 30 percent of the EU\'s recovery budget is allocated for green investment.
Most importantly, under the Paris Agreement, the government of Indonesia must immediately set a much higher nationally determined contribution (NDC) – the agreement’s term for intended emission reduction targets. The 29 percent target that is the government\'s current benchmark is no longer sufficient and far below the standard of global ambitions.
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Indonesia\'s credibility on the international negotiation platform depends on our ability to show a progressive and courageous attitude towards reduce emissions within our own territory (Indonesia now ranks as the 11th largest carbon emitter in the world). Remember: in 2009, ahead of the global COP 15 negotiations in Copenhagen, Indonesia became a "game-changer" in global climate diplomacy when it announced its 26 percent emissions target at a time when no other developing country was talking about their target numbers.
Indonesia should not wait to be pushed by the US, the European Union, Britain or China to announce a higher NDC target.
Today, it is impossible for us to become a respected player in climate diplomacy while our national emissions target is just 29 percent. In comparison, China, the largest economy and the largest carbon emitter in the world, has declared that it will reach "net zero emission" by 2060. Indonesia should not wait to be pushed by the US, the European Union, Britain or China to announce a higher NDC target.
The most important lesson from the Covid-19 pandemic is to not be careless in reading the signs of the times. The Defense Ministry\'s 2015 white paper had long included predictions on pandemics, calls for caution, and even warnings about the threat of a dangerous viral outbreak, but these were never included in draft policies and were never budgeted.
A woman wearing a protective face mask and gloves holds a placard complaining about the lack of suport for the self-employed and zero hours contract workers, on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh in Scotland on March 23, 2020, as governments scramble to defend their own economies against the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic in order to ward off a long-term global recession and future waves of infections.
On the issue of climate change, all the signs are visible this time around. The year 2020 was the second hottest year in the world’s history (after 2016). The seven warmest years in human history occurred consecutively since 2014. Greenland recently lost 580 billion tons of ice that melted due to warming temperatures, which could submerge the entire state of California by a one-meter increase in sea level. In Indonesia, we are now witnessing many natural disasters of increasingly higher intensity.
All of these phenomena are certainly worsening to threaten the industrial sector, agriculture, supply chains, settlements, infrastructure, public health, drinking water and maritime welfare, as well as cause a variety of other conflicts and even war.
Dino Patti Djalal
If the earth\'s temperature warms up by 4 degrees Celsius, we will no longer be able to bring it down again. This is different from an economic crisis, which can always be corrected. This will be a permanent disaster for all Indonesian generations to come. In this year\'s big battle of climate change, will Indonesia want to be a mere participant, or will it want to advance and become a pioneer?
Dino Patti Djalal, Founder, the Foreign Policy Community of Indonesia (FPCI); Former Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs
(This article was translated by Kurniawan H. Siswoko).
