His full speech may be found here.
Southeast Asia is home to some of the most magnificent forests on the planet. It is a region where there are exceptional opportunities – but also great challenges – related to conserving biodiversity and mitigating climate change. Some of the highest deforestation rates in recent years are found in Southeast Asia.
The Asian Development Bank recently highlighted the need to tackle global warming in Southeast Asia, as the region is highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Bangkok is experiencing the worst flooding in recent history.
This was the back-drop at the conference, hosted by the National Climate Change Secretariat and the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, on 17 October in Singapore.
Ambassador Brattskar was invited to share the experiences of Norway’s Climate and Forest Initiative aimed at encouraging and supporting developing countries in reducing carbon emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+). The unsustainable use of forests has traditionally been a basis for short term development in many countries
“The Norwegian Government’s ambition is to contribute up to USD 500 million per year to this cause”, Ambassador Brattskar stated. “Norway has committed up to USD 1 billion to Indonesia”, he continued. The support is in the form of a results-based partnership, requiring the particular country to generate results to justify the payments.
Haze from Indonesia as a result of forest fires is a problem in Singapore and Southeast Asia in general. The Singaporean Minister of State at the Ministry of National Development, BG (NS) Tan Chuan-Jin addressed this in his presentation by pointing to Singapore’s regional projects to implement and monitor sustainable water management and ensuring peat land conservation in Indonesia. “Singapore is committed in contributing to global efforts in mitigating climate change”, BG (NS) Tan Chuan-Jin declared.
The Indonesian Deputy Head of the Presidential Delivery Unit for Development Monitoring and Oversight, Mr Heru Prasetyo, has in his presentation pointed to infrastructure challenges and emphasised the need for integrated maps in order to establish agreement between ministries on what constitutes “primary forests”. Despite these challenges, the dedication in Indonesia is high and the country has committed to a 26% reduction of emissions - or 41% with international support - by 2020. Significant progress has already been made with the Climate and Forest Initiative in Indonesia.
The three main opening statements were followed by sessions discussing technical aspects and approaches to forest conservation in the region. Specialists contributed by sharing best practices and outlining remaining challenges.