JakartaPost-July 21, 2023
Climate activists have urged Indonesia to play a stronger role in ensuring the global carbon market will not undermine the real greenhouse gas emissions reduction efforts ahead of the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP28, later this year. The United Arab Emirates will host the 28th UN climate summit in Dubai from Nov. 30 to Dec. 12 this year. The conference’s main focus will be fast-tracking the energy transition, climate financing and adaptation to the impacts of the climate crisis, said Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, the CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company and president-designate for COP28, in a statement last Thursday. The summit was expected to work out the details of the international carbon market mechanism as well as the loss and damage funding mechanism. Indonesia has keenly anticipated the carbon market, marked by the issuance of a presidential regulation on carbon’s economic value in 2021, days before the COP26. Last month, the Environment and Forestry Ministry also issued a ministerial regulation detailing the mechanism of carbon trading in the forestry sector. The ministry also penned on Tuesday a memorandum of understanding with the Financial Services Authority (OJK) to further prepare the carbon market. Indonesia needs to be cautious in creating a carbon market so that it does not become a greenwashing tool used by companies to avoid reducing their emissions, warns Greenpeace Indonesia country director Leonard Simanjuntak. One carbon market mechanism allows companies to compensate for their emissions by purchasing carbon credits from other companies that are working on emission mitigating or removal projects, such as forest conservation. But critics slammed this mechanism, saying that it is unjust because companies can buy as much carbon credit as they want without reducing their emissions. “We need strong monitoring mechanisms to make sure that the incentives to reduce emissions will actually be bigger than the carbon credit trading,” said Leonard. Read more at: https://www.thejakartapost.com/paper/2023/07/21/indonesia-must-push-for-fairer-carbon-market-activists-say.html.
