International Forum for Sustainable Asia and the Pacific: ISAP
[ The 6th ISAP was held on the 23rd and 24th July 2014. This forum was held jointly by Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) and United Nations University – Institute for Advanced Studies (UNU-IAS) in Pacifico Yokohama, Minatomirai. This year’s theme was “Bringing regional voices to the post-2015 Development Agenda: Solutions for a Low-carbon, resilient and inclusive Asia Pacific”]
My visit to ISAP this year was my second time. The first time was when I assisted the organiser in 2012. At that time I was an intern with IGES. I must say that this forum has grown so much since my last participation. The event this year started yesterday at 9:30 on the 5th floor of Pacifico Yokohama conference hall. I arrived a bit earlier so I had the chance to catch up with some of my former colleagues from IGES Kitakyushu office and Hayama office. In the poster hall, many organisations including the Ministry of Environment (MOE) provided their leaflets and policy briefs for everyone to take.
At 9:30, the hall has already been packed with people. IGES chair of board directors; Prof. Hamanaka Hironori, opened the forum with his speech. His main points were 1) As the UN General Assembly is approaching in September 2015, all efforts should focus on implementation, concrete proposals, and acceleration in negotiation. 2) Collaboration between many actors; central government, local government, and the community. The second speaker was UNU-IAS Rector; Prof. Kazuhiko Takeuchi. He also emphasised on engaging broad participation of various stakeholders. The professor highlighted an initiative called FGC (Fukushima Global Communication) which is focusing on studies and lessons learned from the Fukushima Disasters for the world to learn. The third speech was delivered by vice minister of the Global Environment, Ministry of Environment Japan. The main focus of his speech were; 1) Impact adaptation and vulnerability on disaster management 2) Japan’s commitment in the SDGs 2020 in stopping global warming and 3) The importance of bilateral carbon trade. The fourth speech was from the governor of Kanagawa prefecture, the host prefecture of this event; Mr. Yuji Kuroiwa. His speech underlined the importance of local energy generation for local consumption. An example is by generating electricity through solar panel installed on the roof of buildings.
These opening speeches has enlighten participants about what is important and where the world and Japan is putting their efforts in the field of low-carbon, resilient and inclusive Asia-Pacific. But there was one speech which has rightly brought everyone in the room into fear of the risks if we are not meeting the sustainable development targets. Prof. Jeffrey Sachs, the director of Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) mentioned the importance of deep decarbonization. The world has recognized in 2009 that if we should not exceed more than 2 degrees Celsius of temperature increase, otherwise we will need to face natural disasters and catastrophe as the consequences. The carbon emission percapita in Japan is about 9 tons per year while the United States is 17 tons per year. Japan has to cut by a factor of 4 and the US need to cut by a factor of 10 to be able to stop the world from heating over 2 degrees Celsius. There are 3 steps that nations can do to achieve deep decarbonisation. These are: 1) Low carbon electricity generation 2) Electrification of vehicle and 3) Strong movements towards energy efficiency.
(photo: skype speech from Prof. Sachs)
The discussions following the opening speech was carried by panels of prominent persons in sustainable development including from international organisations such as UNEP and the Indonesian former Minister of Environment; Prof. Emil Salim. Prof. Emil Salim mentioned that there are two leaders in Asia in the field of advanced technology and high labor productivity; Japan and South Korea, thus, technology transfer from these two countries to the rest of Asia might be what it is required to leapfrog development and decouple economic growth from carbon emissions.
Prof. Emil Salim is a very famous person in Indonesia, not only because he is the former minister of environment, minister of transportation, and other prominent positions in sustainable development in Indonesia, but also for his long experiences being the council advisors for the long governing late former President Soeharto and current President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. I approached the podium after the sessions with my business card. To my surprise, Prof. Emil Salim left the several other Indonesians asking for picture behind him and took the business card from my hand. He read my business card loudly and smiled. Afterwards, I helped the 85 years old man walking down the podium. Eighty five years is quite a health achievement for and Indonesian person, considering our 70 years life expectancy. Although I did not have the chance to take picture with him, but this precious memory is more than enough for me!
(Prof. Emil Salim is second from the left in the picture)
After lunch time (for everybody else, because I was fasting), I attended the parallel sessions. One session was about building resilient cities in Asia. Many researchers shared their case studies and proposals in measuring the urban index, administrative index, civic index, and the integration of assessment results. A take out message from this parallel session was that although experiences from the developed countries may be useful and measuring tools could be helpful often times, implementation is challenging mainly due to lack of capacity and financing in the targeted low economy regions.
The last parallel session that I attended however, presented a different perspective. This last session of the day was presented together with representatives from Indonesia. The executive director, Centre for Climate Risk and Opportunity Management in Southeast Asia and Pacific, Bogor Agriculture University; Rizaldi Boer. And also a representative from the ministry of environment of Indonesia. The session discussed about the implementation of Measuring, Reporting, Verifying (MRV) for Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMA). Indonesia has been practicing these tools and according to Prof. Kameyama from National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES), Indonesia could be the leader of this by providing good practice example to the rest of Asian countries.
The chair of the parallel session asked, what is the motivation of Indonesia to take such high-cost action that is often not the priority for many developing countries. Prof. Rizaldi Boer answered; “NAMA (and MRV) is an opportunity to Indonesia. Despite of its high cost, there are multiple benefits of carbon mitigation. Of course, deep carbonisation will require high technology, and this must be done through collaboration with the developed countries. However practices can also be done in low cost such as policies and regulations. For example, when Indonesia import cars, electric cars will have a 50% cut in import tax (because it is cleaner than the fossil-fuel based cars). I think this should also be practiced in the developed countries itself (incentives in buying cleaner technologies). In countries, many resources are not used efficiently. By giving incentive and motivation in clean technologies, creativities will be created. The question is how to synergize between actors (private, NGO, Government). We need to create dialogs among actors. Of course the process will need to be taken step by step because “trust” should be there too. The key of making good development plan is to have good quality of Data. MRV could provide such data (that is why Indonesia is adopting the mechanism).
(photo: Prof. Rizaldi Boer presenting about MRV in Indonesia)
There was a question from the audience about the process of introducing a Japanese high technology for implementation in Indonesia. The representative from the ministry of environment said that the process is similar for any kind of technology adaptation from foreign countries in Indonesia including: 1) The technology must meet the Indonesian regulation and standards (waste water standards, energy efficiency standards, pollution standards, etc) 2) The technology will be verified by the technical committee including the technical experts and academia and 3) since the hundreds of thousands industries in Indonesia are categorised as medium and small enterprises, the technology should be suitable for this scale of industry.
A proposal from the floor was from a lecturer from Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) about designing MRV for different countries in Asia, because one country’s characteristics could be different than another. This was welcomed in a positive manner by the panel and the audience.
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A take out note that I can highlight from ISAP2014 are;
– Yes the world is in an alarming stage of carbon emission level
– Yes the world must join hands and move to the right direction of deep decarbonization
– The common conception is: transfer of technology from the developing to the developed countries.
– But that common conception is far from sufficient; consulting and making use local expertise, creating a system where creativity is motivated and to incentivicize good practices could open up opportunities of accelerating the progress towards sustainable development.
by Andante Hadi Pandyaswargo 2014