Indonesia will lobby China to ask the country to announce its voluntary target of emissions cuts to ward off the expected deadlock on new climate change treaty talks to be held in Copenhagen next month.

State Environment Minister Gusti Muhammad Hatta said China played a pivotal role for the success of the Copenhagen talks given rich nations demanded that emerging countries like China commit to a binding target on emissions reduction.

“If China sets a voluntary target on emissions cuts, I believe the United States and others wealthy nations would follow suit,” Gusti said Friday.

He said he had also talked with European ambassadors in Jakarta asking for their support for the key Copenhagen conference, to be held from Dec. 7 to 18.

Indonesia is one of the first developing countries to have announced targets for emissions reductions.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono pledged that Indonesia would cut its emissions by 26 percent by 2020 on a voluntary basis.

Adianto P. Simamora ,  The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Fri, 11/06/2009 9:13 PM  |  National

5th Global Conference on Oceans, Coasts, and Islands: Ensuring Survival, Preserving Life, and Improving Governance May 3-7, 2010, UNESCO, Paris, France

(in association with the 50th anniversary of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission and in celebration of the International Year of Biodiversity 2010)

The 5th Global Oceans Conference will specifically address the challenges and opportunities posed by the emerging international consensus on a new climate regime (as developed through the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, Copenhagen, December 2009). Mitigation, adaptation, and financing issues will profoundly affect oceans, coasts, and small island States, which are at the frontline of climate changes. Thus, it is imperative that the importance of marine and freshwater ecosystems and resources and their vulnerability to climate change are emphasized and that integrated ecosystem-based principles and approaches be fully incorporated in the shared vision for long-term cooperative action and in the adaptation, mitigation, financing, and technology strategies and measures.

Conference Registration Form

Session Application Form

Oceans Day at Copenhagen: The Importance of Oceans, Coasts, and Small Island Developing States in the Climate Regime: December 14, 2009, European Environment Agency, Copenhagen (during the UNFCCC 15th Conference of the Parties)

Oceans Day, co-organized by the International Coastal and Ocean Organization (Secretariat of the Global Forum on Oceans, Coasts, and Islands), the Government of Indonesia, the European Environment Agency, together with a number of governments, NGOs, and IGOs, will provide an opportunity for Parties and Observer States, intergovernmental organizations, non-government organizations, and members of civil society to discuss the implications of the emerging Copenhagen agreement for oceans, coasts, and coastal communities around the globe, especially in small island developing States. Oceans Day will highlight the direct link between climate change, the health of the oceans, and human well-being, as well as highlight the need for sufficient funding to support bold mitigation and adaptation actions that will minimize climate change impacts on coastal communities and ocean resources. Oceans Day at Copenhagen will also underscore the latest scientific understanding about the impacts of climate change and increased concentration of atmospheric carbon on the oceans. This enhanced knowledge, in addition to the Manado Oceans Declaration, underpins the strong need to focus on oceans, coasts, and coastal communities in the climate negotiations and provide the context for charting the way forward.

The Associated Press ,  Athens   |  Wed, 11/04/2009 9:32 PM  |  World

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday warned that the problem of environmental refugees from developing countries is increasing the pressure for a climate change agreement at an upcoming conference in Copenhagen.

Ban said that the global talks on climate change have also reached a “critical period” in the weeks ahead of Dec. 7-18 climate conference.

On Tuesday, African nations staged a one-day walkout from the U.N. climate talks in Barcelona, Spain, to press demands that negotiations focus more heavily on carbon emission cuts by rich nations. The protesting countries said they would be hardest hit by the effects of global warming.

“Negotiations have recognized that migration is a likely consequence of climate impacts. Populations will relocate due to more extreme weather, including prolonged droughts, intensive storms and wildfires,” Ban said.

“In Africa, expanding desertification is … prompting more people to leave rural areas. So far these movements have occurred within countries. But that could very well change over time,” he said.

Ban spoke at an international conference on immigration Wednesday in Greece, where he began a two-day official visit.

“Protecting vulnerable communities must be a priority,” he said. “We need action in Copenhagen. We will continue to push for the most ambitious agreement possible.”

In London on Tuesday, Ban acknowledged that agreements on firm carbon emission cuts may not be reached in Copenhagen, but that progress toward that goal could be made.

On Wednesday, he met Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou and President Karolos Papoulias.

Ban urged Greece’s new Socialist government to improve screening procedures for asylum seekers.

“I am … aware that the various U.N. refugee and human rights mechanisms have expressed their concerns about the conditions of migrants detained in Greece,” he said.

Greek officials on Wednesday promised to review bureaucratic procedures for asylum seekers and speed up the application process.

According to European Union figures, nearly half of the total number of illegal immigrants that reached the EU borders last year, arrived through Greece.

Nearly 20,000 asylum applications were filed in Greece last year, but only 379 people were granted international protection, the U.N. refugee agency said.

Ban also said his special envoys had made “reasonable progress” in talks to reunite divided Cyprus and were ready to restart talks on a name dispute between Greece and its neighboring Macedonia.

SLEMAN, KOMPAS.com — Pemerintah Indonesia menyatakan akan berupaya keras mempertahankan Protokol Kyoto dalam konferensi perubahan iklim di Kopenhagen, Denmark, Desember nanti. Protokol itu dinilai sangat penting sebagai perangkat aturan guna mengurangi tingkat emisi gas karbon dunia.

“Jangan sampai Protokol Kyoto itu hilang begitu saja. Kalaupun sampai diganti namanya, kita mengharapkan artikel 3.9 itu tetap ada, yakni kewajiban negara-negara maju untuk menurunkan emisinya,” kata Menteri Negara Lingkungan Hidup Gusti Muhammad Hatta saat kunjungan kerjanya di Sleman, DI Yogyakarta, Rabu (4/11).

Dari data yang diterima Gusti, ada kekhawatiran suhu bumi akan naik 4 derajat celsius jika emisi gas karbon tidak diturunkan. Hal itu akan mencairkan es di kutub dan membuat permukaan air laut naik 80 cm. “Dampaknya, 33 juta penduduk Indonesia yang tinggal di garis pantai akan kebanjiran,” kata Gusti.

Karena itu, Gusti mengatakan bahwa Indonesia akan memainkan peranannya dalam konferensi nanti untuk mendesak negara-negara maju agar ikut serta menurunkan emisinya bersama-sama Indonesia. “Indonesia sudah secara sukarela menurunkan emisi gas karbonnya hingga 26 persen. Padahal, Indonesia tidak wajib. Itu maksudnya untuk menggugah negara-negara maju, seperti Amerika Serikat, untuk ikut,” katanya.

Pemerintah saat ini juga gencar menggalang kekuatan, khususnya dari negara-negara Eropa, untuk mendukung rencana tersebut. “Beberapa hari ini saya sudah menerima duta besar dari negara-negara Eropa. Kita meminta dukungan kepada mereka dan mereka menyambut positif,” kata Gusti.

Laporan wartawan KOMPAS Mohamad Final Daeng

Arthur Max ,  Associated Press ,  Barcelona   |  Sun, 11/01/2009 8:32 PM  |  World

Negotiators from nearly 180 countries hope to nail down the outline of a plan to provide tens of billions of dollars a year to fight climate change, in their final round of talks before a decisive conference in Copenhagen next month.

The five-day meeting beginning Monday will resume work on the draft of an agreement to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the first international accord on controlling emissions of carbon dioxide and other climate-changing gases.

They are charged with whittling down a thick draft document full of competing proposals, disputed wording and minority-backed options, and crafting a workable agreement that can be accepted by all 192 nations due to attend the Dec. 7-18 Copenhagen conference.

But with time swiftly running out, skepticism is mounting that one of the most complex treaties in history can be reached in the Danish capital, as envisioned when the negotiations began two years ago.

Deep divisions remain among industrial countries and the developing world on commitments by the rich countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and on how the developing countries can lower the upward trajectory of their own emissions.

“It is realistic to say that in Copenhagen we will not be able to conclude a treaty, but it is important to lay down a political framework which will be the basis of the treaty,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said at the close of a European Summit in Brussels on Friday.

Even with that framework, she said, “negotiations will drag out longer until we get a treaty.”

Environment advocates caution against losing faith and momentum.

“It is crucial that we keep ambitions high,” said Kim Carstensen, the global climate strategist for the World Wildlife Fund, concerned that cascading pessimism could contribute to failure in Copenhagen.

The Kyoto Protocol required 37 countries to reduce emissions by an average 5 percent from 1990 levels by 2012, but made no demands on emerging countries. The U.S. renounced it as unfair and harmful to its economy.

Over the next decade after Kyoto was signed through 2006, U.S. emissions grew 5.5 percent while India’s grew 47 percent and China’s by 92 percent, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Of the 180 pages in the draft document discussed in Barcelona, 30 pages deal with financing for poor countries to help them adjust to climate changes and to move toward a greener development path.

The European Union gave shape to the discussion on Friday when it put a figure on the table. It called for euro5 billion to euro7 billion ($7.5 billion to $10.3 billion) over the next three years, scaling up gradually to euro100 billion, or nearly $150 billion a year, by 2020.

As much as half should come from governments and public money, while the other half should derive from private investments and from the carbon market in the industrial countries. Europe has had carbon trading since 2005, and the U.S. Congress is considering a similar cap-and-trade scheme.

Climate activists criticized the EU paper as too vague and the funding inadequate.

The policy paper avoided saying how much Europe would contribute to the climate fund and called on all countries except the poorest to throw money into the pot. The EU said it would pay its “fair share” if others did too.

Oxfam International called it an “opening bid for climate justice that is nowhere near enough.”

“This is not yet a breakthrough for a climate deal. But the EU has shown that real numbers can now be negotiated,” said Elise Ford, head of Oxfam’s Brussels office.

PANGANDARAN, KOMPAS.com — Kerut di wajah wanita ini menggambarkan betapa keras jalur hidup yang ditempuhnya. Susi Pujiastuti (45) merangkak sebagai pedagang ikan segar. Ia sukses di industri perikanan modern dan penerbangan carter beraset ratusan miliar rupiah.

Tak pelak, PT Excelcomindo Pratama (Tbk), perusahaan telekomunikasi, menganugerahinya predikat The Best Indonesia Berprestasi 2009. Saat ini, wanita yang hanya lulusan SMP itu mengelola dua perusahaan.

Masing-masing adalah PT ASI Pujiastuti Marine Product yang bergerak di bisnis perikanan, dan Susi Air yang merupakan maskapai sewa dengan 22 pesawat propeler. Dari dua perusahaan itu, Susi bisa menghidupi ribuan karyawan.

Jalan hidup wanita ini memang penuh liku. Seusai memutuskan keluar dari bangku SMA di Cilacap, Jawa Tengah, pada 1983, Susi mulai menjalani pekerjaannya sebagai pengepul ikan dengan modal pas-pasan.

Usahanya terus berkembang. Setahun kemudian, dia berhasil menguasai pasar Cilacap. Tidak puas hanya berbisnis ikan laut di satu daerah, Susi mulai melirik daerah Pangandaran di pantai selatan Jawa Barat.

Ternyata, di sana keberuntungan Susi datang. Usaha perikanannya maju pesat. Jika semula dia hanya memperdagangkan ikan dan udang, maka Susi mulai memasarkan komoditas yang lebih berorientasi ekspor, yaitu lobster.

Dia membawa dagangannya sendiri ke Jakarta untuk ditawarkan ke berbagai restoran seafood dan diekspor. Karena permintaan luar negeri sangat besar, untuk menyediakan stok lobster, Susi harus berkeliling Indonesia mencari sumber suplai lobster.

Masalah pun timbul. Problem justru karena stok sangat banyak, tetapi transportasi, terutama udara, sangat terbatas. Untuk mengirim dengan kapal laut terlalu lama karena lobster bisa terancam busuk atau menurun kualitasnya.

Pada saat itulah timbul ide Susi lainnya untuk membeli sebuah pesawat. Christian von Strombeck, suaminya yang kebetulan warga negara asing yang berprofesi sebagai pilot pesawat carteran asal Jerman mendukungnya.

Sebuah pesawat jenis Cessna dia beli. Alat transportasi itu sangat membantunya meningkatkan produktivitas perdagangan ikannya. Nilai jual komoditas nelayan di daerah juga naik.

“Nelayan bisa mendapatkan nilai tambah. Misalnya saja, lobster di Pulau Mentawai yang tadinya hanya dijual Rp 40.000 per kilo, setelah itu bisa dinaikkan menjadi Rp 80.000 per kilo saat itu,” kata Susi kepada Persda Network.

Jadi, kebutuhan terhadap pesawat penumpang pun semakin meningkat seiring dengan ekspor yang terus bertambah. Belakangan, pesawat yang tadinya hanya untuk mengangkut barang dagangan laut, dia coba sewakan kepada masyarakat yang ingin menumpang.

“Ternyata, permintaan transportasi sangat besar karenanya kita pun mengembangkan bisnis pesawat carter ini dan Susi Air,” ujarnya.

Saat ini, Susi Air memiliki 22 pesawat kecil, antara lain jenis Cessna Grand, Avanti, dan Porter yang dioperasikan oleh 80 pilot. Sebanyak 26 pilot di antaranya adalah pilot asing.

Harga pesawat Cessna saat ini Rp 20 miliar per unit. Adapun harga pesawat Avanti bisa empat kali lebih mahal.

Maskapai Susi Air saat ini beroperasi di hampir semua daerah pelosok di Indonesia. Untuk mengembangkan bisnisnya ini, Susi bertekad menambah pesawat lagi hingga mencapai 40 unit pada akhir tahun depan dengan investasi sekitar Rp 200 miliar.

“Yang penting kita tingkatkan layanan agar pelanggan semakin suka pada kita,” ujarnya berfalsafah. (Hendra Gunawan)

Sumber: KOMPAS

Semarang (ANTARA News) – Direktur Lembaga Pengembangan Wilayah Pantai (LPWP) Universitas Diponegoro Semarang, Dr Agus Suherman mengatakan Menteri Kelautan dan Perikanan membutuhkan wakil menteri mengingat kompleksitas permasalahan kelautan Indonesia.

Seagrasses to Salt Marshes Among the Most Cost Effective Carbon Capture and Storage Systems on the Planet

But Urgent Action Needed to Maintain and Restore ‘Blue Carbon’ Sinks Warns Three UN Agencies

Cape Town, Nairobi, Rome, Paris, 14 October 2009 – A ‘Blue Carbon’ fund able to invest in the maintenance and rehabilitation of key marine ecosystems should be considered by governments keen to combat climate change.

A new Rapid Response Report released today estimates that carbon emissions-equal to half the annual emissions of the global transport sector-are being captured and stored by marine ecosystems such as mangroves, salt marshes and seagrasses.

A combination of reducing deforestation on land, allied to restoring the coverage and health of these marine ecosystems could deliver up to 25% of the emissions reductions needed to avoid ‘dangerous’ climate change.

But the report, produced by three United Nations agencies and leading scientists and launched during National Marine Month in South Africa, warns that far from maintaining and enhancing these natural carbon sinks humanity is damaging and degrading them at an accelerating rate.

It estimates that up to seven percent of these ‘blue carbon sinks’ are being lost annually, or seven times the rate of loss of 50 years ago.

“If more action is not taken to sustain these vital ecosystems, most may be lost within two decades,” says the report Blue Carbon: the Role of Healthy Oceans in Binding Carbon launched by the United Nations Environment Programe (UNEP), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO.

Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director, said: “We already know that marine ecosystems are multi-trillion dollar assets linked to sectors such as tourism, coastal defense, fisheries and water purification services-now it is emerging that they are natural allies against climate change.”

“Indeed this report estimates that halting losses and catalyzing the recovery of marine ecosystems might contribute to offsetting up to seven percent of current fossil fuel emissions and at a fraction of the costs of technologies to capture and store carbon at power stations,” he added.

The new report comes less than 60 days before the crucial UN climate change convention meeting in Copenhagen where governments need to Seal the Deal on a comprehensive new agreement.

It is likely that nations will agree to pay developing economies to maintain the ‘green carbon’ in forests under a partnership-Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD).

Mr Steiner added: “The links between deforestation and climate change are firmly on the political radar and there is optimism that REDD will form part of a new global climate partnership, but the role and the opportunity presented by other ecosystems are still overlooked.”

“If the world is to decisively deal with climate change, every source of emissions and every option for reducing these should be scientifically evaluated and brought to the international community’s attention-that should include all the colours of carbon including now blue carbon linked with the seas and oceans.”

Dr. Carlos Duarte, one of the chief scientists of the report based at the Mediterranean Institute of Advanced Studies in Spain, said: “We know that land use change is part of the climate change challenge. Perhaps less well known is that the global loss of what we could call our “blue carbon sinks’, such as mangroves and seagrasses, are actually among the key components of the increase in greenhouse concentrations from all land use changes.”

Christian Nellemann, Editor of the Rapid Response report, said: “There is an urgency to act now to maintain and enhance these carbon sinks – since the 1940s, over 30% of mangroves; close to 25% of salt marshes and over 30% of seagrass meadows have been lost. We are losing these crucial ecosystems much faster than rainforests and at the very time we need them – on current trends they may be all largely lost within a couple of decades.”

“Fishing and aquaculture communities will be heavily impacted by climate change and have a key role to play in maintaining healthy ocean ecosystems in the face of change,” said Ichiro Nomura, Assistant Director-General for Fisheries and Aquaculture at FAO.

“An ecosystem approach to the management of ocean and coastal areas cannot only enhance their natural carbon sink capacity, but also offers a way to safeguard and strengthen food and livelihood security for fisheries-dependent communities,” he added.

Officials with UNESCO also underlined the important role the oceans are already playing in offsetting climate change and its impacts on humanity, but warn that this is having consequences too.

“Because the ocean has already absorbed 82% of the total additional energy accumulated in the planet due to global warming, it is fair to say that the ocean has already spared us from dangerous climate change,” says Patricio Bernal, Assistant Director-General of UNESCO, IOC Executive Secretary. “But each day we are essentially dumping 25 million tons of carbon into the ocean. As a consequence, the ocean is turning more acidic, posing a huge threat to organisms with calcareous structures.”

Luciano Fonseca of UNESCO-IOC explains that the ocean’s absorption of the planet’s excess heat “is like a glass of whisky with ice. As long as the ice is there the whisky stays cool. The energy that is going into the glass, from your hand and room temperature, is working to convert the ice to liquid. As soon as the ice melts the whisky turns warm.”

Key Findings from the Rapid Assessment Report

• Of all the biological carbon, or green carbon captured in the world, over half (55%) is captured by marine-living organisms – not on land – hence the new term blue carbon.
• Marine-living organisms range from plankton and bacteria to seagrasses, saltmarsh plants and mangrove forests.
• The ocean’s vegetative habitats, in particular, mangroves, salt marshes and seagrasses, cover less than 1% of the seabed.
• These form the planet’s blue carbon sinks and account for over half of all carbon storage in ocean sediment and perhaps as much as over 70%.
• They comprise only 0.05% of the plant biomass on land, but store a comparable amount of carbon per year, and thus rank among the most intense carbon sinks on the planet.
• Blue carbon sinks and estuaries capture and store between 235-450 Teragrams (Tg C) or 870 to 1,650 million tons of CO2 every year – or the equivalent of up to near half of the emissions from the entire global transport sector which is estimated annually at around 1,000 Tg C, or around 3,700 million tons of CO2, and rising.
• Preventing the further loss and degradation of these ecosystems and catalyzing their recovery can contribute to offsetting 3-7% of current fossil fuel emissions (totaling 7,200 Tg C a year or around 27,000 million tons) of CO2 in two decades – over half of that projected for reducing rainforest deforestation.
• The effect would be equivalent to at least 10% of the reductions needed to keep concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere below 450 ppm needed to keep global warming below two degrees Celsius.
• Combined with action under REDD, halting the degradation and restoring lost marine ecosystems might deliver up to 25% of emission reductions needed to keep global warming below two degrees Celsius.
• Unlike carbon capture and storage on land, where the carbon may be locked away for decades or centuries, that stored in the oceans remains for millennia.

Currently, on average, between 2-7% of our blue carbon sinks are lost annually, a seven-fold increase compared to only half a century ago.

• In parts of southeast Asia losses of mangroves since the 1940s are as high as 90%.
• Large-scale restoration of mangroves has been successfully achieved in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta and salt-marsh restoration in Europe and the United States.

Countries with extensive, shallow coastal areas that could consider enhancing marine carbon sinks include India; many countries in southeast Asia; those on the Black Sea; in West Africa, the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, eastern United States and Russia.

Maintaining and Recovering Marine Ecosystems-the Wider Benefits

Coastal waters account for just seven percent of the total area of the ocean. However, the productivity of ecosystems such as coral reefs, and these blue carbon sinks mean that this small area forms the basis of the world’s primary fishing grounds, supplying an estimated 50% of the world’s fisheries.

They provide vital nutrition for close to three billion people, as well as 50% of animal protein and minerals to 400 million people of the least developed countries in the world.

The coastal zones, of which these blue carbon sinks are central for productivity, deliver a wide range of benefits to human society. These include filtering water, reducing effects of coastal pollution, nutrient loading, sedimentation, protecting the coast from erosion and buffering the effects of extreme weather events.

• Coastal ecosystem services have been estimated to be worth over US$25,000 billion annually, ranking among the most economically valuable of all ecosystems.
• Much of the degradation of these ecosystems not only comes from unsustainable natural resource use practices, but also from poor watershed management, poor coastal development practices and poor waste management.
• The protection and restoration of coastal zones, through coordinated integrated management would also have significant and multiple benefits for health, labour productivity and food security of communities in these areas.

Notes to Editors:

The report “Blue Carbon – The Role of Healthy Oceans in Binding Carbon” can be accessed at www.unep.org or at www.grida.no, including high and low resolution graphics for free use in publications.

The report will be released at 10.30 am Oct. 14 at the DIVERSITAS biodiversity science conference, Cape Town Conference Center, South Africa (www.diversitas-osc.org) or http://dev.grida.no/RRAbluecarbon/pdfs/update/

The Blue Carbon report compliments a report launched by UNEP on the occasion of World Environment Day 2009 called The Natural Fix?-The Role of Ecosystems in Climate Mitigation http://www.unep.org/pdf/BioseqRRA_scr.pdf

For more information, please contact:

Nick Nuttall, UNEP Spokesperson/Head of Media, on Tel +254 20 7623084, Mobile: +254 733 632755, Email: nick.nuttall@unep.org

Catherina (Marina) Joubert, Acting Communications Person for the Diversitas Conference and SOUTHERN SCIENCE, South Africa, Science Communication Editor of SciDev.Net, Tel: +27 83 409 4254, Email: marina@southernscience.co.za