European Union Environmental Foreign Policy on Indonesia

The last United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of Party (COP) 15 in Copenhagen did not go as many had expected it would be. One of he major International actor that plays important role on promoting concise awareness and mechanism about the need to act for climate protection act is the European Union. It is with great utmost curiosity, Embassy-Space visited the EU Commission Representative in Indonesia to ask around on how Copenhagen meeting stands out under the EU perspective, and to what extent EU work their policy and foreign policy in pursue goal of climate mitigation effort around the globe, to be particular in Indonesia itself. The visit held on February 4, 2010 with the assistance of Mr. Thibault Duvall, the head of Development Division of EU Commission Representative for Indonesia.

Internally, EU has finally achieved single political will to tackle climate change by reducing green gas emission up to 20% in 2020. This in fact is an ambitious target that makes EU as the most vocal regional organization that voiced out climate change mitigation. This agreement brought EU a solid stance in the Copenhagen meetings. In the international domain EU has main objectives to gives mutual assistance in the form of financial, technical, and advisory to the developing nation in order to embark the effort of climate change mitigation.

However there was a discourse when it comes to the international debate of how to find exact mechanism that could legally binds all party. Most countries came up with different base line and focuses, as well as still conform their own interest instead of sharing the same vision. Most party that comes from civil society as well as media began to criticize the meeting as unfruitful. But when it came to the last session of discussion done by head of states, a non-legally binding accord was made with several commitments from various major states such as USA, China, and Russia. The points of the accord are to agree of maximum increase of earth temperature would be only 2 degree Celsius, reduction targets for developed and developing states are to be enlisted, monitoring, reporting, and verifications, as well as review to be completed in 2015. Yet again the result is non-legally binding which can pose as problematic, but depends on how we see it, this could also mean a progress as there are some countries that has shown their political will to tackle climate change.

On this case EU sees that it might be really hard to achieve full consensus under UNFCCC as there are too many members with many demands and interests, therefore EU also actively engage on bilateral cooperation with states around the globe along with society-level of approach to increase awareness of climate change issue. Based on this policy, Indonesia comes up as a very strategic partner for EU. Firstly that EU is in the awe by the Indonesian Government commitment to reduce 15% of emission, as what had been mentioned by SBY, the Indonesian President, during the Copenhagen meeting. According to what Indonesian government had expected that the financial aid is really needed for Indonesia to mitigate climate change, EU has funded at least twelve environmental projects arranged by both Indonesian State’s department, as well as Civil Society around Indonesia. Deforestation, illegal logging, and other mishap are expected to stop in Indonesia.

There are several obstacle and challenges that EU faced in advancing its environmental foreign policy to Indonesia. First EU realizes that there is still lack of coordination of policy with the central and provincial government which limits the policy effectiveness regarding environmental protections. SBY had promised that the number of fund that Indonesia needed to fully apply emission reduction is exceeds to 30 billion dollar only can be effective if there is transparency in developing strategy and technology to emission reduction as well as natural preservation, and also to create clear measurement to monitor Indonesia’s achievements. There are still lacks of awareness about the importance of environment in several rural areas of Indonesia, such as in Riau, Papua, and other regions that filled with forests. The above obstacles can only be overcome if there is fully cooperation between EU and Indonesia to meet the goals.

Embassy-Space also questioned about the notions of clear transfer technology mechanism between developed and developing nations as to clear extent that technology plays important role in order states to achieve environmental and emission reduction target. But Mr. Thibault reckoned that this is still a problematic issue and still undergone a debate. The problem lies on the intersection between World Trade Organization’s rules about technological patent, as that most technological advance own by private sector that unwilling to give their technology for free to the developing world. This shown how market and private sector still has to be assured to act accordingly to the vision of tackling climate, because if the action was too late and consequences would be severe.

Based on our discussion, Embassy-Space noted that EU is nevertheless an important partner for Indonesia, it just now depends on how we take the advantage to it and not wasting and stalling the effort.