Green Growth Is ‘Way to Go,’ Wealthy Nations Declare
By
Erwida Maulia on 08:25 am Nov 14, 2014
Yogyakarta. Indonesia is expected to take on a leadership role in a regional campaign for green economic growth, with a new report suggesting it is a high time for Southeast Asia — one of the world’s fastest-growing regions — to abandon business as usual and embrace sustainable developments.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, in its latest report launched on Tuesday, says Southeast Asia has ample opportunities to make use of green technologies that have become increasingly available, some of which have also been growing more affordable.
Green growth has traditionally been seen as a costly alternative to the status-quo, typically yielding lesser outcomes. For these reasons green growth has long been dispreferred among low-income nations.
But the OECD report argues that green growth should be “the way to go” for the region, that its economic growth can go hand in hand with sustainable developments, as the latter has increasingly become a necessity instead.
“Infrastructure and the built environment are being determined now [in Southeast Asia], defining energy consumption, pollution levels and resilience for decades to come,” according to the report, titled “Towards Green Growth in Southeast Asia.”
“The experience of many OECD and other emerging countries shows that growth strategies that ignore environmental performance eventually result in expensive clean-up and mitigation measures, as well as large welfare losses.”
“Southeast Asia has a golden opportunity to leapfrog over the low-performing, polluting, resource-inefficient technologies of more developed countries … leapfrog 20th Century technologies and infrastructure by adopting clean, viable and economical alternatives.”
OECD deputy secretary-general Rintaro Tamaki said the organization of high-income nations acknowledged progress that had been made in Southeast Asia toward low-emission developments, but that more could be done by the region to “put on the green growth path.”
Tamaki said the OECD advises countries in the region on strategies and policy recommendations toward sustainable growth, summing up the report in three key messages:
“First, economic growth and environmental sustainability are inseparable. Secondly, Southeast Asia shouldn’t miss the good opportunity of this time. Thirdly, the political leaders should be essential,” Tamaki told a press conference on the sidelines of Asia Low-Emission Development Strategies Forum 2014, which took place in Yogyakarta from Tuesday through Thursday.
The report cites an example of how outdoor air pollution, which resulted in nearly 200,000 deaths in the region in 2010 and cost over $280 billion — according to a World Health Organization report earlier this year, can be curbed in the future by developing more environmentally friendly transportation networks.
“By reducing air pollution, better public transport can reduce these [health impact] costs and benefit the economy by easing congestion and increasing productivity,” the report says.
The report cites coastal flooding in Southeast Asian cities as another example, as such flooding was estimated to cost the region $300 million in average annual losses in 2005.
“Even with significant investment in adaptation the price tag [of coastal flooding] could climb to $6 billion by 2050. Installing climate-resilient structure now and being much more ambitious in adaptation efforts could limit the damage and attract businesses seeking long-lasting, resilient investments.”
The report also highlights the issue of fossil fuel subsidies, saying they amounted to about $51 billion in 2012 in Southeast Asia, equivalent to about 11 percent of all general government spending.
Indonesia has the largest fossil fuel subsidy program in the region, the OECD said .
“We’re in particular suggesting to the Indonesian government to reduce your fossil fuel subsidies accounting for 15 percent of the total [government] expenditure, and 60 percent of education and health expenditures,” Tamaki said, citing 2012 figures.
“Removing or reducing these subsidies — while alleviating any social impacts investing the savings in education, health and social welfare programs — will simultaneously reduce environmental pressures and increase wellbeing.”
Indonesia’s role
Ali Tauqeer Sheikh, regional director for Asia at the Climate and Development Knowledge Network, said Indonesia was expected to lead green economic growth campaign for Southeast Asia, continuing with what it’s already been doing.
He cited Indonesia’s leadership shown in the Bali Action Plan, and later through its 2010 commitment to reduce the country’s carbon emissions by 26 percent by 2020 using its own resources — and by 41 percent with international assistance.
“Low carbon development strategies [must be championed through] Indonesia’s leadership in Southeast Asian regions,” Sheikh told the same press conference in Yogyakarta.
“Indonesia must take leadership in stabilizing the global temperature at 2 degrees [Celsius], because Indonesia is under imminent threat of [global warming],” he added, referring to the temperature rise ceiling agreed upon by countries in Copenhagen in 2009.
Sheikh earlier said, citing a latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, that Indonesia and other island nations in Asia would be hit hardest by sea level rise. Many of the coastal areas will be submerged, even if the world manages to curb temperature increase below 2 degrees Celsius.
“[Indonesia] needs to protect its territory. Indonesia has to protect its natural resource base, forests and others,” Sheikh said. “They’re not only important to Indonesia and its economy, they’re also important to stabilize global temperature and global climate.”
Endah Murniningtyas, a deputy minister for national resources and environment at Indonesia’s National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas), claimed that the Indonesian government had “mainstreamed” low-emission growth in its development agenda. In Indonesian development parlance, “mainstreaming” means an issue is at least nominally regarded as a core priority, often at the behest of outsiders, that policy makers are obliged to address.
“Indonesia has internalized, has mainstreamed emission reductions in its development programs,” Endah said.
“In many countries, climate change and development issues have not been combined. But I can say in Indonesia we’ve luckily done that, although there remain many challenges ahead.”
She added Indonesia was willing to continue its environmental leadership, this time with green growth campaign in Southeast Asia.
“Since the beginning, Indonesia has been committed to taking the lead, to give examples as to how this [green campaign] can be done,” Endah said.
She added she believed, supporting the OECD report’s suggestion, that low-emission development would not go against Southeast Asia’s goals of economic growth and poverty reductions.
Tamaki, meanwhile, dismissed concerns that green technologies to support low-emission developments were too expensive for developing nations, citing as an example the continually declining costs of solar power, an alternative renewable energy source.
“Looking at the solar panel prices, they decline very quickly. [Solar panel] is now a traded good in international markets. Any countries, developed or developing, can enjoy the price changes, price declines.”
Tamaki said what remained to be seen was willpower from governments in Southeast Asia to embrace low-emission developments, suggesting that they could begin with attracting more foreign direct investments in the renewable energy sector.
He added governments in Southeast Asia, too, could use carbon trading and or carbon taxation schemes to encourage the growth of sustainable development projects in their respective nations.
“Public and private finance providers are increasingly seeking green investment opportunities as part of a growing international and domestic trend towards investment portfolios, whose profits go hand-in-hand with environmental performance,” the OECD report says.
“Southeast Asia has the opportunity to lead this global shift, given its rapid industrialization and natural resource wealth.”
Green Growth Is ‘Way to Go,’ Wealthy Nations Declare - The Jakarta Globe
