Fidelis E Satriastanti – Almost 100 days into his tenure as environment minister and Gusti Muhammad Hatta found himself confronted by visibly irritated lawmakers who wanted to know why his ministry had achieved so little of its priority programs.
Gusti appeared before House of Representatives Commission VII, which oversees environmental affairs, on Tuesday to defend his ministry's achievements in fighting forest fires and its participation in December's UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, two of the main objectives of the ministry's 100-day program, which ends on Jan. 28.
Lawmaker Dewi Aryanti Hilman, from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), said the ministry was overly ambitious when it drew up its 100-day program. She also questioned the ministry's commitment and capability to rein in big corporations accused of destroying the environment.
"Why is the environment minister failing to go after big corporations, and not getting this into the papers and the media? They should be working to go after the big fish," Dewi said.
There are 56 companies on the government's own "black list" of worst environmental offenders, including 10 state-owned enterprises and 12 foreign companies.
The companies on the black list operate across a range of industries, including oil and gas, coal mining, pulp and paper, textiles, fish processing, plywood and palm oil. Among the companies is an oil and gas joint venture involving PT Pertamina in South Sumatra, six state-owned plantations, nine plywood companies, 10 palm oil concerns and a leading milk producer.
Lawmakers were annoyed not only by what Gusti had failed to do but also by what he failed to say. The minister made no mention during Tuesday's meeting of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's bold emissions cuts pledge made at a G-20 meeting in the United States last year. Yudhoyono had pledged to reduce the country's carbon emissions by a lofty 26 percent by 2020.
The reduction pledge was neither included in the 100-day program nor the ministry's one or five-year programs. Gusti, lawmakers said, should have mentioned the matter considering it was a pledge made personally by Yudhoyono at an international forum.
Sulistyowati, assistant deputy for climate change impact control, had previously said that at least Rp 83 trillion ($8.88 billion) would be needed to finance efforts to reduce carbon emissions by 26 percent by 2020, and an additional Rp 85 trillion in international support to achieve the more ambitious 41 percent emissions cuts target.
Green activists took turns lambasting the ministry on Tuesday, beginning with Chalid Muhammad, chairman of the Indonesian Green Institute.
"If one of the 100-day goals was to prevent forest fires, Indonesia should consider itself lucky because the rainy season must have helped in this matter without any actual effort by the ministry," he said, adding that little had been done in the most fire-prone regions of Riau, Jambi, North Sumatra, South Sumatra, Central Kalimantan and West Kalimantan.
As for the country's achievements at the UN climate talks, Chalid said Indonesia had failed to win the support of other countries to follow up on the results of the first climate change talks, in Bali in 2007, and to make the Copenhagen Accord legally binding.
"We were unable to gain support from other countries for the Bali Road Map and didn't push for funding on carbon-trading schemes," he said, referring to the so-called road map that outlined legally binding emissions targets for developed nations.
Berry Nahdian Furqon, executive director of the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi), said that Indonesia's impact at the Copenhagen talks had been negligible.
"Copenhagen was a failure because it did not involve public participation, not even the legislature," he said. "There was no legally binding result, like we had aimed for, and there were no significant emissions targets for developed countries."
"Our government is well known for failing to integrate sustainable environmental solutions into other sectors in order to reduce problems caused by development," Berry said. He pointed to the government's failure to act on the 2009 Environmental Protection and Management Law, which was praised last year for giving the environment ministry a strong legal grounding to take action against those who harmed the environment.
Chalid said a systematic plan should have been set up to introduce the new law to other government ministries working on environmental issues.
"This means that the minister should be able to get the other ministers to work together to restore the environment, but this is not being done," he said.
Chalid also said the minister, as an aide to the president, should remind Yudhoyono about the new law's mandate and the importance of environmental issues.
"He should be able to tell the president that we already have this law and it stipulates environment issues are a national priority," Chalid said.