cloud forest fires in the arrow Indonesia carbon emissions by ten this year. The government announced a plan to reorganize the management of land and the nation's forests.
At the end of November, 195 countries and 150 world leaders, including Barack Obama, Xi Jinping, and Joko Widodo, meeting in Paris for the Conference on the United Nations climate. The event provided a forum for leaders to share knowledge on climate change, an issue known by many scientists and advocates that the most pressing issue of the century.
The purpose of the conference was for the participating countries to agree on a legally binding and universal agreement that, in fact, slow the rise in global temperatures to more than two degrees above pre-industrial levels this century.
Since the 1990s, the idea of limiting the temperature of global average surface at this level was considered an adequate means to avoid dangerous climate change. The theory was accepted by scientists and policy makers worldwide. However, recent studies show that environmental and social impacts of such average temperature could actually be much deeper than previously thought.
The commitments on behalf of the participating countries to date would still result in global warming of at least 2.7 degrees, even if they are all true. This is better than the increase of five degrees we would expect no action, but it is still far from the goal of two degrees.
If emissions continue unabated, the world would be on track to exceed the current temperature otherwise course in about 30 years. This would expose communities to forest fires increasingly dangerous, extreme weather, drought and other adverse weather effects.
Right in the heart of the debate on climate change are matters of fossil fuels and deforestation, the two main contributors to our global carbon emissions.
While the major countries currently focus on renewable energy, a recent study shows that halving deforestation in the tropics would keep more than one billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere. This would greatly contribute to global efforts to limit the rise in global temperature.
A recent study published in the December edition of the scientific journal Global Change Biology entitled "Can tropical carbon emissions drop in deforestation of 50% in 5 years? The study comes with numbers in the title after the generation of a carbon map of the world in tropical forests. It also sets benchmarks for average annual carbon emissions from deforestation in the tropics.
The study highlights the important role that the tropics play in climate change. With this in mind, many countries close to the equator are already committed to a goal of halving carbon emissions from deforestation by 2020. The leaders solidified their commitment in 2014 by signing a document called commitment to the New York Declaration on forests (NYDF).
Indonesia, which shows the second highest greenhouse gas from deforestation only after Brazil, was one of the 15 tropical countries that have signed the NYDF. However, the archipelago of commitment is now being questioned, after the environmental disaster it caused this year by forest fires in Sumatra and Kalimantan.
The carbon emissions from gross deforestation in Indonesia has decreased from a high of 0.362 2012 0.205 billion tonnes in 2013. However, if the nation really wants to halve its carbon emissions from deforestation compared to the benchmark, it will reduce its average emissions over the next five years to 0.099 billion tonnes of carbon.
The significant reduction of emissions from deforestation in 2013 is likely due to a combination of price and policy signals. This is especially true in the palm oil sector, pulp and paper. However, their relative importance and sustainability of this slowdown remain uncertain. The recent fires have eaten more than 2 million hectares of land across Indonesia in 2015. The country's disorder crisis contributed nearly 1.4 billion tons of annual emissions of countries, making it the third largest polluter of the air in the world this year, after China and the United States.
According to the report, emissions from fires can be more than ten times the acceptable benchmark index. Faced with such a grim prospect, the government acted quickly by announcing several policies to revamp the forestry sector, especially in peatland management.
"Earlier this year, the President of Indonesia […] called for new development bogs cease immediately while all existing licenses on peatlands are examined," says co-author Belinda A. Margono, a specialist in the detection and deforestation analyst remotely. "the government plans to implement a significant peatland restoration effort in an attempt to ensure that the conditions that led to catastrophic fires this year do not arise in the future. "
During his speech at the Conference on the United Nations climate, President Jokowi reiterated its commitment to fight against the rampant deforestation in the country, explaining Indonesia to implement the policy "one card", allowed a moratorium on peatland forest restoration and conservation efforts.
Karliansyah, Director of pollution and damage to environment and Forestry Ministry of Indonesia, said that the government is developing regulations that will serve as legal basis for the protection of peatlands in the country. He said the ministers met on December 8 to discuss the overhaul of the rules permit bogs and more.
However, the policy of a card has been in development for several years. The country suffers from conflicts related to overlapping forest issues and zoning of land, making it difficult for the government to manage the sector, including peat.
Outside the planned policy of one map, the government has also set up a monitoring system called the Indonesian National Carbon Accounting System (INCAS) in order to reduce emissions national atoms. The officials presented the INCAS recently at the World Forum of the landscape on the sidelines of the Conference on the UN climate.
"This will help Indonesia to monitor our emissions reductions and to achieve our goal," said Presidential Special Envoy for Climate Change, Rachmat Witoelar. The system will use spatial data from the National Institute of Aeronautics and Space to calculate carbon stocks.
INCAS homing Haruni Krisnawati said the carbon monitoring system has been in development since 2011 and meets the standards of the UN. The system can be used to measure carbon stocks in forests and peat bogs similar, both underground and surface.
Both the single policy map and INCAS are in line with the argument of the report that the country must have reliable data if it really wants to halve the rate of deforestation.
"To halve emissions from deforestation is achievable," said Nancy Harris, co-author and research director for Global Forest Watch to the World Resources Institute. "But first, you need strong benchmarks, transparent and evidence-based to measure progress. "
While Nancy believes that goal is achievable, the report acknowledges that halving gross issuance of tropical deforestation in five years is a huge challenge. "Market failures and governance failures are the problem," said Daniel Zarin, lead author of the study. "The forests are cut because someone benefits from timber sales or livestock or crops are grown on deforested lands, or to speculate on the poorly regulated land markets. But the real losses that deforestation incurs are not against profits, and it is not only carbon emissions. "
Zarin highlights the role that ordinary people play in contributing to deforestation and climate change.
"agricultural areas and urban centers lose the benefits provided by forests to the hydrologic cycle. The only biodiversity losses are incalculable. We consume through products with ingredients grown in distant lands which indigenous peoples and other local communities have recently been expelled - or worse - to make way for chain saws and bulldozers that transform forests in large monoculture fields for the production of commodities These are crimes in which we are all complicit. " said Zarin.
He added that the reduction of gross deforestation provide public benefits at local, national and global. "It makes sense for the international community to help forest countries who demonstrate real leadership . Many countries and companies have already agreed to halve deforestation by 2020 and to eliminate deforestation in the production of commodities. Now we have solid benchmarks against which progress can be measured. There are always excuses for inaction, but the time for excuses is over. "