Kyoto: What to expect

By ratifying the international regime known as the Kyoto Protocol, Indonesia took on Monday a small but nevertheless meaningful step toward meeting its responsibilities with regard to preserving the earth's environment.

In addition, the country is certain to gain a number of direct benefits under the protocol's Clean Development Mechanism, which makes it possible for industrialized countries to invest in environmentally clean development projects in developing countries and receive credit for the greenhouse gas reductions thus achieved. This allows developing countries to keep their greenhouse gas emissions low, even as they continue to develop their energy sectors and expand their economies.

Amoseas Indonesia Inc., for example, a subsidiary of U.S.- based energy giant Chevron Texaco, is reported to have already applied for "emission credits" provided for by the protocol to finance a US$100 million geothermal plant expansion project in West Java. With only a small percentage of the country's potential -- the equivalent of about 20,000 megawatts of electricity -- so far tapped, the possibilities that the provision offers for the future are obviously huge.

The Kyoto Protocol, a direct progeny of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change that 154 nations signed in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, aims, in essence, to strike a balance between the accelerating pace of development in the world and growing concern about climate change caused by global warming. Many scientists predict that global temperatures will increase by 1.5 degrees to 4.5 decrees Celsius by 2100 unless immediate steps are taken to gradually but substantially reduce the emission of what is known as greenhouse gases (GHGs) into the atmosphere.

Obviously, such drastic changes in the earth's climate could have serious consequences for life in most, if not all, the countries of the world. This, however, is especially true for archipelagic countries such as Indonesia, which could well see its borders altered if islands on its perimeter were to be inundated by rising sea levels. Indonesia, therefore, has a clear and direct interest in seeing to it that global warming is kept to a minimum, if for no other reason than to keep its national territory intact.

The Kyoto Protocol aims to reduce the emission of those gases from developed industrialized countries by about 5 percent from their 1990 levels, by 2008 to 2012. Developing countries such as Indonesia, however, are under no obligation to reduce their emission of greenhouse gases, the argument being that slowing down the pace of development in these countries would stall their growth, with possibly disastrous consequences.

After Monday's ratification of the Kyoto Protocol by the House of Representatives, there remains only action by President Megawati Soekarnoputri to sign the document into law. In the meantime, it would be as well for Indonesians to realize that a number of hurdles must still be passed before the protocol can come into force. The Kyoto Protocol will not come into effect until at least 55 of all the 154 signatories of the 1992 Rio "earth summit" have ratified the document. In addition, those 55 members must represent the source of at least 55 percent of all the carbon dioxide emitted in 1990.

With the U.S., which accounts for about 36 percent of total global emissions, saying that it has no intention of ratifying the protocol and with Russia procrastinating, there is little hope that the protocol will become effective anytime soon. Also, many scientists hold that the protocol, even if it should come into effect sooner than expected, will not stop the process of global warming, although it may slow down the rate somewhat. No less important, the curbing of greenhouse emissions in the industrialized countries means a slowing down of their economies that could bring consequences detrimental to the world economy.

Nevertheless, as some observers have noted, the Kyoto Protocol stands as a mark of progress in the international community's moral and political thinking about environmental issues, and must for that reason be welcomed. Alternatives to methods that are detrimental to the economic growth of the industrialized countries can and will certainly be found in time. Hopefully, by then, Indonesia, and the world, will be able to fully take benefit from the Kyoto Protocol, which it signed on Monday, seven years after it was conceived.