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  Yahoo News 1 Sep 07
Indonesia proposes rainforest nations climate group

Straits Times 2 Sep 07
Indonesia calls on rainforest nations to close ranks
Indonesian initiative comes as UN conference on climate change ends in discord

JAKARTA - EIGHT countries that contain about 80 per cent of the world's tropical rainforests, led by Indonesia, will close diplomatic ranks later this month amid frustration over existing international climate change discussions, a senior official said yesterday.

The announcement was made a day after a five-day United Nations conference on climate change ended in Vienna with significant disagreements remaining about how countries should reduce greenhouse gas emissions and daunting estimates for the price tag for combating global warming.

Indonesia will open a meeting of the eight countries on Sept 24 in New York in parallel with the United Nations' annual plenary session, said the spokesman for Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

The eight countries are Brazil, Cameroon, Congo, Costa Rica, Gabon, Indonesia, Malaysia and Papua New Guinea, but more could join, said spokesman Dino Patti Djalal.

'It's important for the eight countries to have a joint consensus on their contribution to efforts to control global warming,' he said.

He said the group would look at how forest conservation can happen in tandem with economic development.

The Jakarta Post reported that the grouping was a response to flaws in the Kyoto Protocol aimed at reducing global carbon emissions, which focuses more on emissions from industry and overlooks forestry.

'The point is that we, the rainforest countries, want to ensure that we will have full ownership of our forests,' Dr Dino was quoted as saying in the Post.

He said that 'the initiatives on rainforest conservation with regard to climate change have always come from developed countries...The President wants to change this situation'.

Some industrial countries during the five-day Vienna meetings balked at adopting language in the conference's final statement that would have set a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 25 to 40 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020.

They agreed in the end that this target would be a non-binding starting point for future discussion.

Many industrial countries, including the United States, are wary of strict and mandatory reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, fearing that such curbs could strike at core sectors of their economies.

The US advocated non-binding commitments, which some environmental activists feared would let big polluting countries evade more stringent and obligatory gas reductions.

Reflecting the range of opinions, the Group of 77 - a bloc of developing nations - said that indus- trialised countries should target an 80 per cent reduction in greenhouse gases by 2020, while German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in Japan on Friday that an equitable solution would base cuts on emissions per person and bring industrialised countries in line with developing ones.

Indonesia is hosting a United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change conference in Bali in December. Its 191 member states will discuss climate commitments for the period after 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol expires.

Indonesia is believed to be the world's third-largest producer of carbon emissions, largely due to forest fires and massive illegal logging.
AFP, Washington Post

Yahoo News 1 Sep 07
Indonesia proposes rainforest nations climate group

Indonesia has proposed that eight countries home to some 80 percent of the world's tropical rainforests join diplomatic ranks amid rising climate change concerns, a senior official said Saturday.

"This is the initiative of our president, in order that they be able to play an important role in the diplomacy of global warming," the spokesman for President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono told AFP.

"It's important for the eight countries to have a joint consensus on their contribution to efforts to control global warming," spokesman Dino Patti Djalal said, adding that the group would look at how forest conservation can happen in tandem with economic development.

Indonesia will open a meeting of the eight countries on September 24 in New York in parallel with the UN's annual plenary session, he added. The eight countries are Brazil, Cameroon, Congo, Costa Rica, Gabon, Indonesia, Malaysia and Papua New Guinea, but more could join, Djalal separately told the Jakarta Post.

The newspaper reported that the grouping was a response to flaws in the Kyoto Protocol, aimed at reducing global carbon emissions, which focuses more on emissions from industry and overlooks forestry.

"The point is that we, the rainforest countries, want to ensure that we will have full ownership of our forests," Djalal was quoted as saying. He said that "the initiatives on rainforest conservation with regards to climate change have always come from developed countries... The president wants to change this situation."

Indonesia is hosting a United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) conference on the island of Bali in December. Its 191 member states are to discuss climate commitments for the period following 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol expires.

Indonesia is believed to be the world's third largest producer of carbon emissions largely due to forest fires and massive illegal logging across the archipelago nation.
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