Govt urged to speed up Kyoto Protocol ratification
Leony Aurora, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The government needs to quickly ratify the Kyoto Protocol to be able to compete with other countries in acquiring millions of U.S. dollars worth of international funding.
The funds are available under a United Nations-run Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) funding scheme provided by developed countries.
But the ratification was being hindered by lengthy bureaucratic procedures in drafting the necessary laws, said Liana Bratasida, the assistant for global environmental affairs at the Ministry of Environment.
Speaking at a seminar, Liana said the ministry had been trying to complete the draft law for the past two years. The existing draft needed to be discussed with other government institutions before being submitted to the House of Representatives, she said.
The Kyoto Protocol, conceived in 1997, identifies 40 industrialized countries as polluters -- the Annex I group -- and requires them to lower their greenhouse gas emission levels to 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.
However, to maintain current production levels, Annex I countries can fund projects in developing countries that lead to lower emissions.
The donor countries' emissions will then be reduced according to a scale -- the projects' Certified Emission Reduction (CER) rate -- determined by the creators of the Kyoto Protocol, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC).
"Without ratifying, Indonesia cannot tap into this resource," Liana said.
Pertamina's Wayang Windu II geothermal power project in West Java, with a planned capacity of 110 MW, is estimated to have a CER of 750,000 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) a year.
One ton of CO2 was worth between US$3 and $10, Liana said. Pertamina could receive a minimum incentive of $2.25 million per year from 2008 to 2012, the first commitment period of the protocol, if a donor was interested in buying its CER, she said.
The Kyoto Protocol is not yet being enforced, as it needs one more Annex I country to ratify it to fulfill its enforcement quota. Russia is expected to join in March, after its presidential elections.
Developing countries are nevertheless racing to have their projects listed at the UNFCC. Indonesia, the only big country in Asia which is yet to ratify the protocol, has registered only one project, the Wayang Windu II.
Two other proposals, for a geothermal plant and a cement factory, were in progress, said Liana.
A proposal must first be registered with a Designated National Authority (DNA), which monitor CDM projects. The DNA reports to the executive board of the UNFCC, which verifies the project.
"It takes one to two years to do this," said Liana.
After verification, the project is ready to be offered to donor countries.
Prior to the forming of Indonesia's DNA, the Ministry of Environment has taken over these tasks.
Tohmei Takekawa, chief representative of New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (Nedo) of Japan, said Japan was interested in funding projects in Indonesia.
"Indonesia is expected to have a 2 percent to 5 percent market share, but it will face competition from other Asian, as well as South American, countries," he said.
Japan has already approved five CDM projects amounting to 2.65 million tons of CO2 per year in Kazakhstan, Brazil, Thailand, South Korea, and Bhutan.