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Saturday March 24, 4:22 AMDeforestation puts Indonesia as 3rd largest greenhouse gas emitter(Kyodo) _ Deforestation, which releases a significant number of carbon dioxide, has put Indonesia as the world's third largest emitter of greenhouse gases after the United States and China, a report released Friday said.According to the report, titled "Indonesia and Climate Change" and published by the World Bank and the British government, yearly emissions in Indonesia from energy, agriculture and waste all together are around 451 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2e). "Yet, land-use change and forestry alone is estimated to release about 2,563 MtCO2e," the report said. The rising carbon dioxide levels have been implicated as the primary cause of global warming since 1950 and tropical deforestation already contributes between 10 and 30 percent of global warming emissions, experts say. Global warming is a phenomenon, in which an increase in the temperatures of the earth's atmosphere and oceans can lead to an increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events including floods, prolonged droughts, heat waves, hurricanes and tornados. Indonesia owns 10 percent of the world's remaining tropical forests with a total area of more than 90 million hectares. According to the report, Indonesia has already had many good policies and legislation that favor sustainable forest management. "Unfortunately, the capacity of the government to implement and enforce laws is weak," the report, released during a one-day public forum on global climate change, said. Therefore, prominent British climate change expert Nicholas Stern said, a policy should be designed during a U.N. conference on global warming on the resort island of Bali in December under which developed nations pay developing nations such as Indonesia and Brazil to preserve their forests. "I think that in the short term, it will be possible to integrate supports for fight against deforestation into a trading scheme," Stern told the forum, saying that between US$10 billion and 15 billion extra a year can cut emissions from deforestation by around a half. Indonesian Environment Minister Rachmat Witoelar said Indonesia will work out a proposal on the scheme to be submitted during the Bali talks that is expected to launch intensive talks on strengthening international cooperation to reduce emissions. "We all benefit from reductions in emissions and we should all contribute to the cost of doing that," Stern said. The current climate change pact called the Kyoto Protocol requires industrialized countries to cut their green house gas emissions from 1990 levels by an average of 5.2 percent by 2012, and its signatories are currently negotiating a successor at the moment. The United States is not part of the Kyoto framework on possible adverse impacts on economic growth. It withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol in April 2001. Experts say global warming will cause the severest damage on developing countries and small island nations where infrastructure has not been fully built up. It has been predicted a temperature rise of up to 6.4 C by the end of this century. |
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