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.