Jakarta to ratify Kyoto Protocol in 2003

Jakarta to ratify Kyoto Protocol in 2003

Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Despite the world call to implement the Kyoto Protocol on the
reduction of carbon-based gas emissions that cause global
warming, Indonesia said on Friday it would only be able to ratify
the convention by mid-2003.

Liana Bratasida, deputy for environmental protection to the
state minister of the environment, said preparations to ratify
the protocol under law were still under way but would not be
completed by the end of this year.

A document obtained by The Jakarta Post says related
ministries would be working on formulating a draft law to ratify
the Kyoto Protocol until early December.

In December, the bill on ratification of the Kyoto Protocol
will be finalized before it goes to the President in January
2003.

In February 2003 the President is expected to submit the bill
to the House of Representatives for deliberation.

Liana said the government would also establish a national
commission to anticipate climate change impact, whose task was to
give advice on national development policy regarding climatic
changes resulting from development projects.

The team will be led by the state minister of the environment,
with members coming from various ministries and institutions,
including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Trade
and Industry, the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources and
the Geophysics and Meteorology Agency (BMG).

A two-week conference discussing the implementation of the
1997 Kyoto protocol on global warming will take place in New
Delhi, starting on Wednesday.

A number of participating countries of the conference have
urged all nations to sign up to the Kyoto Protocol.

The protocol was declared at the Kyoto conference in 1997,
under which industrialized countries were called upon to reduce
their combined greenhouse gas emissions by at least 5 percent,
compared with the 1990 levels, between 2008 and 2012.

The protocol was opened for signature on March 16, 1998.

It will come into force 90 days after its ratification by at
least 55 parties to the convention, including developed
countries, which account for at least 55 percent of the world's
total carbon dioxide emissions in 1990.

The U.S. is among countries refusing to sign the protocol. Its
president, George W. Bush, who leads the world's largest national
polluter, has accused the agreement of unfairly targeting major
economies.

The developing world produces six times less pollution per
capita than the industrialized world, according to the UN-backed
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

But poor countries' emissions are increasing at a rate of 3.5
percent per year, compared with 1 percent for the rich world, and
the developing world is likely to account for most pollution by
2020.