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RI
advocates ocean issues at Bonn talks
Friday, 5 June 2009
Indonesian delegates attended the Bonn climate conference in Germany
this week with a clear agenda of ensuring ocean issues are incorporated
into climate talks to help save millions of coastal people from the
brunt of global warming.
State Minister for the Environment Rachmat Witoelar said delegates would
officially table the Manado Ocean Declaration (MOD) at the Bonn climate
conference, hosted by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change (UNFCCC).
"Our goal is to put ocean issues on the negotiation table at the Bonn
climate conference," Minister Rachmat told The Jakarta Post on
Wednesday. "For us, the
Bonn conference is "the right door" to enable ocean issues to be
included on the official agenda of the upcoming Copenhagen climate
conference."
The MOD requiring countries to promote sustainable ocean management and
ocean conservation was an output of the World Ocean Conference (WOC) in
Manado in May. The ocean
conference was initiated by Indonesia, the world's largest archipelagic
nation, which has about 5.8 million square kilometers of marine
territory.
According to Minister Rachmat, once ocean issues are adopted as part of
the UNFCCC agenda, the chances for ocean nations to get financial
incentives for adaptation and technology will be wide open.
Coastal communities, mainly in small island states, are deemed as
being the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, mainly due
to rising sea levels. The
countries have repeatedly called on rich nations for financial and
technological assistance to stem climate change.
Three-thousand delegates from 190 countries will gather in Bonn between
June 1 and June 12 to prepare a new agreement on reducing carbon
emissions after 2012 by setting targets for developed nations.
The new climate-change pact will succeed the first phase of the
1997 Kyoto Protocol, which requires 37 industrialized nations to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 5 percent below 1990 levels by
2012.
After the Bonn meeting three further climate-change meetings are
scheduled for this year, ahead of the Copenhagen meeting, where Kyoto's
replacement is to be formally adopted. Aside from the UNFCCC meeting,
Indonesia is expected to promote ocean issues to UN members as part of
an informal consultative process on ocean and laws of the sea
(UNICPOLOS) in New York in June and at the UN General Assembly in New
York in November.
Earlier, Indonesia and other forest countries promoted the forest as an
alternative mechanisms to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
After 10 years of intensive negotiations, the international
community adopted a policy on reducing emissions from deforestation and
forest degradation (REDD) at the Bali climate conference in 2007.
The REDD is being pushed as a key element for a new global
agreement to fight climate change after the Kyoto Protocol expires in
2012, paving the way for forest nations to receive financial incentives
to avoid deforestation.
"We hope carbon mechanisms such as those regulating forests can be
applied to ocean issues," Minister Rachmat said.
He said that ocean countries still need to run scientific
research to learn the ocean's ability to mitigate climate change.
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