♠ Posted by Emmanuel in Environment,Southeast Asia
at 6/05/2007 12:19:00 AM
This factoid may surprise some of you, but the world's third largest emitter of greenhouse gases after the US and China is...[drum roll please]...Indonesia. You must be asking yourselves, "How did that happen"? Well, read on. That country's rich biodiversity is at stake. From Reuters:Indonesia is among the world's top three greenhouse gas emitters because of deforestation, peatland degradation and forest fires, a World Bank and British government climate change report released on Monday showed.UPDATE: Banny's comment prompted me to review critiques of Indonesia's biofuels program as promoted by SBY (Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono). Environmentalists are not very keen on it, it seems. The Guardian has more on the possible effects of promoting biofuels there:
An increase of global temperatures has already resulted in prolonged drought, heavy rainfall leading to floods and tidal waves in Indonesia, putting the archipelago's rich biodiversity at risk, the report said.
"Emissions resulting from deforestation and forest fires are five times those from non-forestry emissions. Emissions from energy and industrial sectors are relatively small, but are growing very rapidly," the report said.
"This may lead to harmful effects on agriculture, fishery and forestry, resulting in threats to food security and livelihoods," said the report, which comes ahead of this week's G8 summit in Germany where global warming is major item on the agenda. Indonesia's total annual carbon dioxide emissions stand at 3,014 billion tonnes after the United States, which is the world's top emitter with 6,005 billion tonnes followed by China at 5,017 billion tonnes, according to data from the report.
Indonesia's yearly carbon dioxide emissions from energy, agriculture and waste are around 451 million tonnes while forestry and land use change are estimated to account for a staggering 2,563 billion tonnes, the report, "Indonesia and Climate Change: Current Status and Policies", said.
Indonesia's rainforests are being stripped rapidly because of illegal logging and palm oil plantations for bio-fuels and some environmentalists say they could be wiped out altogether within the next 15 years.According to some estimates, the tropical southeast Asian country - whose forests are a treasure trove of plant and animal species including the endangered orangutans - has already lost an estimated 72 percent of its original frontier forest.
Yet palm oil, mixed with diesel to produce biofuel, was hailed as a potential saviour for the environment. Put simply, the argument runs that the palm oil plants produce organic compounds that when burned in engines do not add to overall carbon dioxide levels. The CO2 absorbed by the plant in its life-cycle should balance the amount it gives out when burned.
However, the more the ecological fairytale is scrutinised the more it begins to look like a bad dream. Researchers from the Dutch pressure group Wetlands International found that as much as half the space created for new palm oil plantations was cleared by draining and burning peat-land, sending huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
The sodden peat of central Kalimantan acts as a vast organic sponge that stores huge amounts of carbon. But as it dries while being drained for plantation, or by roads being cut through to remove timber, it releases the stored carbon. In Indonesia alone, the peat releases 600m tonnes of carbon a year. Worse, it is often set alight to speed clearing, adding to the CO2 from the huge forest fires that blanket much of south-east Asia in haze. Estimates say Indonesia's fires generate 1,400m tonnes of carbon dioxide each year, pushing it to the world's third-largest producer of CO2 from 26th, if both factors are considered.
Conservationists also fear that placing all eggs in one basket could prompt an ecological disaster. A palm oil monoculture would be unable to support the rich diversity of wildlife and leave the environment vulnerable to catastrophic disease, while local people dependent on the crop could be left high and dry if it fell out of favour.
