Today is Word Environment Day, and this year’s
theme “Seven Billion Dreams. One Planet. Consume with Care” highlights the
threats facing the world’s inhabitants and environment.
Indonesia,
with its population of almost 250 million, represents 3.5 per cent of the seven
billion people living on this planet and that number is increasing every year.
The country’s economy has expanded at an average annual rate of 5 per cent in
the past decade, giving rise to a middle class of more than 70 million, or
three times the population of Australia.
These
numbers — and the abundance of natural resources the country possesses — means
it is crucial that we take to heart the theme of World Environment Day and
recognize there is only one planet and we need to care for it.
Our
planet and its ecosystems are moving to a critical tipping point of loss while
consumption and population growth accelerate. More than half the world’s
wildlife has disappeared in the past four decades. And Indonesia, with the
highest number of mammal species under threat in the world, is not immune.
This
crisis has occurred because we are consuming at a faster pace than the planet’s
ability to regenerate. We have overfished our rivers and oceans. We are
depleting our water sources and destroying our forests and ecosystems.
The UN
Environment Program (UNEP) has said that if we continue to follow the same
pattern of production and consumption as is currently the case, we will need
three planets to sustain mankind by 2050.
And yet
there are striking imbalances in this story of overconsumption. More than 550
million people in Asia and the Pacific live in poverty, on less than US$1.25
per day and around 75 million children under 5 are underweight. Millions have
no access to electricity and don’t have adequate access to health services and
education, making them vulnerable to be pushed further into extreme poverty.
The UN
Development Program’s (UNDP) One Planet to Share report, launched in Jakarta in
2012, notes that the poorest of the poor are affected most by environmental
degradation because they don’t have the coping mechanisms to withstand the
consequences.
For the
world and for countries such as Indonesia to continue to grow while improving
the welfare of the poor and protecting our natural resources, a change in
approach to economic growth and development is needed. We need to start putting
a value on nature. We need to switch to more sustainable consumption and
production patterns both in corporations and individual households.
And we
need to use our available resources more efficiently, phase out substances that
harm the environment and decrease the carbon footprint of our activities.
This
change in approach does not imply a trade-off between economic growth and
environmental protection. Pursuing both simultaneously is possible.
The
needed policy shifts to achieve these changes can be informed through green
economy models, which place a value on the services provided by nature and
account for the costs of environmental destruction as we pursue economic
growth.
The UNDP
together with UNEP has supported the development of the Indonesia Green Economy
Model, piloted in Central Kalimantan and
Jakarta. The model enables polic makers the social, economic and
environmental impacts of policy and investment decisions to assess
simultaneously.
The
government of Indonesia has made commitments to environmental protection that
align with the theme of World Environment Day this year. The strengthening of
natural resources governance was emphasised in Indonesia’s 2015-2019 National
Medium Term Development Plan and the country has reaffirmed its commitment to a
26 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by the end of the planned
period against a business as usual scenario.
The UNDP
has collaborated with the government to help explain some of the policy shifts
needed to facilitate the country’s transition to more sustainable development.
One example is the 2014 Indonesia Forest Governance Index, launched last month
by the Enviroment and forestry ministry
with the support of the UN-REDD Program
and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).
At World
Environment Day commemorations today, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo is
expected to receive the Index, which analyses the strengths and weaknesses of
forest governance in the country.
A
milestone commemoration means nothing without firm action. What is urgently
needed now is stronger enforcement of natural resource protection and better
policies that can incentivise private and public investments into green sectors
and support the needed changes in behaviour.
We must
also put in place adequate public resources to ensure that all parties follow
through on their commitments to put sustainable patterns into action.
World
Environment Day is an opportunity for polic makers to further support
Indonesia’s transition to a green economy and for the public to become agents
of change.
This is a
joint and urgent responsibility for everyone and all countries to secure the
future of this planet and the seven billion who live on it.
Beate Trankmann
The writer is country director of the United
Nations Development Program (UNDP) in
Indonesia.
Business & Investment Opportunities
Saigon Business Corporation Pte Ltd (SBC) is incorporated
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