Adianto P. Simamora, Jakarta – The government has started calculating the country's total climate emissions as part of efforts to mitigate the impacts of human-induced climate change.
National project manager of Indonesia's second national communication to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Armi Susandi, said the inventory of greenhouse gas emissions could also be used to counter reports calling Indonesia the world's third-largest emitter after the United States and China.
"We will analyze policies issued by all sectors to calculate the country's total emissions," he told The Jakarta Post after a meeting with the national communication team Tuesday.
He said the report, which is expected to be completed this year, would outline efforts the country would take to cut carbon dioxide emissions, the main contributor to climate change. "We hope to submit the second national communication to the United Nations next year," he said.
A signatory of the Kyoto Protocol on the UNFCCC, Indonesia submitted its first national communication report to the UN in 1999 during the climate conference in Bonn, Germany. The first report referred to Indonesia's forests as the main emitter in the country.
The UN requires rich countries that are signatories of the Kyoto Protocol to submit inventory data of their emissions every year. Developing countries, including Indonesia, however, can voluntarily submit a national communication report.
Armi said the team would calculate emissions from the energy, mining, forestry, agriculture and transportation sectors.
The British Department for International Development and consultancy firm Peace earlier said Indonesia had become the world's third largest emitter due to rapid deforestation.
The world's largest emitter, the United States, releases 6,005 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalents (MtCO2e) annually, followed by China with 5,017 MtCO2e. The majority of emissions in both countries comes from energy use. Indonesia's yearly emissions are estimated at 3,014 MtCO2e, mostly from land use change and forest destruction, which contribute about 2,563 MtCO2e to the total.
Indonesia has repeatedly denied the report but failed to come up with an emissions calculation of its own. International green group Greenpeace reports indicate Indonesia lost 72 percent of its 123.35 million hectares of rainforest between 2000 and 2005.
A research and development official at the Forestry Ministry, Rufi'ie, told the meeting that the country's forest emissions reached 19 billion tons in 2000 from 108 million hectares of forest, or more than half of the national emissions totaling 24 billion tons. He said the country's forests could produce about 180 tons of carbon per hectare.
Ujang Solihin Sidik, a waste management official at the state minister of the environment's office, said the country's landfill system had generated significant methane gas emissions that would also worsen global warming. He estimated each of 26 major cities across the country produced at least 54,000 cubic meters of waste per day.
"If just 65 percent of the waste is disposed at the final dump site, the sanitary landfill in the cities would produce at least 4,000 tons of methane gas per day," he said. However, the government has yet to prioritize global warming mitigation from the waste sector, he said.