POLICY
JAKARTA (FORESTHINTS.NEWS) - In the lead-up to COP26, the EU-funded Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) recently revealed (Sep 21) that wildfires caused record levels of global carbon emissions in the months of July and August 2021.
CAMS named the Mediterranean, Siberia and North America (US and Canada) as the biggest contributing regions to the widespread wildfires. Indonesia, however, is not among the major contributors to these record high carbon emissions.
CAMS announced that July saw an unprecedented nearly 1.26 billion tonnes of CO2 emitted into the atmosphere due to wildfires burning predominantly in North America and Siberia.
This record was duly overtaken in the following month of August when an estimated over 1.38 billion tonnes of CO2 were released from wildfires, creating huge amounts of smoke pollution.
Meanwhile, according to data on carbon emissions due to forest and land fires in Indonesia from the country’s Environment and Forestry Ministry, Indonesia’s contributions to global wildfire emissions in July and August stood at 0.25% and 0.36% respectively.
Extremely minor contributor
The CAMS announcement of the July and August figures, backed up by the ministry’s own dataset, proves that Indonesia remains only a very minor contributor to global fire emissions ahead of COP26.
Indonesia’s extremely small role in contributing to global fire emissions is not only confined to this year. Last year too, it was not among the major contributors to such emissions, as President Joko Widodo recently emphasized in his virtual speech at the 76th UN General Assembly (Sep 23).
Indonesia is also expected to get through September - like August - without experiencing any substantial haze-causing fires, even though these months along with October constitute peak dry season in the country.
Remarkably, the results of the latest satellite monitoring done by the ministry (Sep 27) demonstrate a 53.65% decline in the level of potential fire spots over the whole of 2021 so far, compared to the same period last year.
Furthermore, as of today, there has been absolutely no evidence this year of any transboundary haze drifting from Indonesia to its neighboring countries, repeating the great success the world’s third largest tropical forest nation had last year in this regard.
Same target
Last year there were many predictions that Indonesia would endure a double-disaster in the form of a serious COVID-19 outbreak in parallel with haze-causing fires. As mentioned by President Widodo at the April 2021 Leaders Summit on Climate Change, these dire predictions were totally off the mark, with the most wide-ranging wildfires in fact ravaging regions such as Europe, the US and Australia.
As previously reported by FORESTHINTS.NEWS (Jun 16), Indonesian Environment and Forestry Minister Siti Nurbaya stressed that her target this year is the same as last year’s - to ensure a complete absence of any substantial haze-causing fires as well as any transboundary haze affecting neighboring countries.
With the same old predictions aimed at Indonesia this year too, Southeast Asia’s largest country needs just over one more month to prove them wrong again, given that to date - as confirmed by CAMS - it is far from being a major contributor to global wildfire emissions.
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POLICY
JAKARTA (FORESTHINTS.NEWS) - In the lead-up to COP26, the EU-funded Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) recently revealed (Sep 21) that wildfires caused record levels of global carbon emissions in the months of July and August 2021.
CAMS named the Mediterranean, Siberia and North America (US and Canada) as the biggest contributing regions to the widespread wildfires. Indonesia, however, is not among the major contributors to these record high carbon emissions.
CAMS announced that July saw an unprecedented nearly 1.26 billion tonnes of CO2 emitted into the atmosphere due to wildfires burning predominantly in North America and Siberia.
This record was duly overtaken in the following month of August when an estimated over 1.38 billion tonnes of CO2 were released from wildfires, creating huge amounts of smoke pollution.
Meanwhile, according to data on carbon emissions due to forest and land fires in Indonesia from the country’s Environment and Forestry Ministry, Indonesia’s contributions to global wildfire emissions in July and August stood at 0.25% and 0.36% respectively.
Extremely minor contributor
The CAMS announcement of the July and August figures, backed up by the ministry’s own dataset, proves that Indonesia remains only a very minor contributor to global fire emissions ahead of COP26.
Indonesia’s extremely small role in contributing to global fire emissions is not only confined to this year. Last year too, it was not among the major contributors to such emissions, as President Joko Widodo recently emphasized in his virtual speech at the 76th UN General Assembly (Sep 23).
Indonesia is also expected to get through September - like August - without experiencing any substantial haze-causing fires, even though these months along with October constitute peak dry season in the country.
Remarkably, the results of the latest satellite monitoring done by the ministry (Sep 27) demonstrate a 53.65% decline in the level of potential fire spots over the whole of 2021 so far, compared to the same period last year.
Furthermore, as of today, there has been absolutely no evidence this year of any transboundary haze drifting from Indonesia to its neighboring countries, repeating the great success the world’s third largest tropical forest nation had last year in this regard.
Same target
Last year there were many predictions that Indonesia would endure a double-disaster in the form of a serious COVID-19 outbreak in parallel with haze-causing fires. As mentioned by President Widodo at the April 2021 Leaders Summit on Climate Change, these dire predictions were totally off the mark, with the most wide-ranging wildfires in fact ravaging regions such as Europe, the US and Australia.
As previously reported by FORESTHINTS.NEWS (Jun 16), Indonesian Environment and Forestry Minister Siti Nurbaya stressed that her target this year is the same as last year’s - to ensure a complete absence of any substantial haze-causing fires as well as any transboundary haze affecting neighboring countries.
With the same old predictions aimed at Indonesia this year too, Southeast Asia’s largest country needs just over one more month to prove them wrong again, given that to date - as confirmed by CAMS - it is far from being a major contributor to global wildfire emissions.
RELATED STORIES
