Indonesian Government claim of victory baseless

Credit to : Adianto P. Simamora , The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Tue, 12/29/2009 8:42 AM | National

A civil society group strongly criticized the government regarding its claims that Indonesian delegates had succeeded in promoting the role of the ocean at climate talks in Copenhagen.

Member of the Civil Society Forum (CSF), Reza Damanik, said that the claim was baseless since no word of the ocean was included in the Copenhagen Accord. “The government appeared to poorly achieve in negotiating the ocean’s role at Copenhagen climate talks,” Reza, also People’s Coalition for Equal Fisheries (Kiara) secretary-general, said Monday.

Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Minister Fadel Muhammad claimed Indonesia included ocean issues in climate talks. Fadel quoted Article 3 of the accord, which requires developed nations to provide finance to support measures in more vulnerable countries, especially the least developed countries (LDCs), small island developing states and Africa. The article, however, does not specify any ocean issues.“It is the government’s interpretation if it said the article relates to ocean issues,” Reza said.

Fadel said that the inclusion of the ocean in climate talks was due to Indonesia’s strong leadership in the negotiation process. Earlier this year, Indonesia hosted the World Ocean Conference 2009 (WOC) in Manado, North Sulawesi, to prioritize ocean issues in negotiations for a Copenhagen climate deal. Indonesia has set up a road map to table the Manado Ocean Declaration (MOD), which was signed by about 80 countries in climate talks at the Bonn climate meeting to last month’s Barcelona conference.The MOD requires adaptation funds and technology transfer to help ocean countries — including Indonesia, as one of the largest ocean nations — to tackle climate change.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in his speech at the high-level meeting in Copenhagen did not mention the role of the ocean in regards to climate change. Before the Copenhagen talks, the terms “ocean” and “marine” were found in at least 18 paragraphs of 161 pages of the draft text.

However, after the president of the climate conference tabled seven pages negotiating draft text last week, all text related to ocean and marine issues were deleted. The ocean and marine-related issues are now mentioned only in draft texts on adaptation, technology transfer and capacity building under the UN Framework Convention on Climate.

CSF coordinator, Georgio Indarto, said Indonesia delegates also failed to safeguard the Bali Road Map, which requires the Copenhagen conference to issue a legally binding treaty with emission-cut targets for developed nations. “If Indonesia had poised to safeguard the Bali Road Map, the delegates should have rejected the Copenhagen Accord as many developing countries did,” he said.

The UN climate summit reached a weak outline of a global agreement, falling far short of what many developing countries were seeking, creating months of tough negotiations.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009/12/29/government-claim-victory-baseless.html