Upon hearing President Joko Widodo’s speech in the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland, on 1 November 2021, one might find the impression that things are going fine. While other world leaders elaborated on the impacts of climate change on their countries, President Jokowi didn’t make any remarks on any such impacts on Indonesia. On the contrary, he instead displayed a list of success through cumulative numbers. Jokowi underlined that in 2020, forest fires in Indonesia decreased by 22 percent and deforestation rate slowed to its lowest level within the past 20 years (Setneg, 2021).

Despite the claim, deforestation is actually not going to end in the Republic. The Minister of Environment and Forestry, Siti Nurbaya, stressed on this a day after Indonesia and 144 other countries signed the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use. Siti called the declaration a coercion on Indonesia to eliminate deforestation by 2030. Siti tweeted on her social media platform, “The massive developments of President Jokowi must not be halted under the guise of carbon emission or deforestation”. (Nurbaya, 2021).

Instead of completely stopping deforestation in accordance with the stipulation of the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration, Indonesia is relying on net carbon absorption programmes on the forestry and land use sector. Minister Siti called it Indonesia’s Forestry and Other Land Uses (FOLU) Net Sink 2030, referring to a target condition in 2030 where the FOLU sector absorbs more greenhouse gas than it is emitting. The net amount of greenhouse gas set to be achieved is 140 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e).

Photo by Melvinas Priananda/Trend Asia

 


The Looming Deforestation Threat from Energy Wood Plantation

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