ASIATODAY.ID, JAKARTA – Indonesia as the Lead Country of the ASEAN Working Group on Forest and Climate Change (AWG-FCC) reiterates that forests have a strategic role in fighting climate change.
Southeast Asia itself is home to around 15% of the world’s tropical forests. This makes ASEAN an important player in overcoming climate change globally through the forestry sector.
Apart from that, data also shows that 45% of the world’s forest areas are in tropical areas. In this way, this area is one of the most important regulators of regional and global climate, a natural carbon sink, and the most significant store of terrestrial biomass. It also has enormous value for biodiversity, ecosystem services, social and cultural identity, livelihoods, and climate change adaptation and mitigation.
“Once again, I want to remind you of the increasingly complex dynamics in overcoming climate change problems in the future. “We must work together to overcome this problem comprehensively, and always foster a spirit of friendship and cooperation in ASEAN,” said Director of Sectoral and Regional Resource Mobilization (MS2R) of the Directorate General of Climate Change Control (PPI) of the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry, Wahyu Marjaka in recent 20th AWG-FCC meeting.
Wahyu also expressed his appreciation to all colleagues in ASEAN Member States, the ASEAN Secretariat and International Organizations for their continuous support so far.
“It is an honor for us to lead AWG-FCC in sharing best practices in reducing emissions and creating impactful collaboration on new issues related to forests and climate change,” he said.
A number of agendas discussed at this meeting included regional policy guidelines related to forests and climate change; matters raised at the 19th AWG-FCC Meeting; ASEAN cooperation action plan in the field of forests and climate change including progress reports on each country’s initiatives; progress of the UNFCCC COP28; and preparations for UNFCC COP29.
At the end of this meeting there were presentations from cooperation programs in the ASEAN Region such as the ASEAN-German Project on Agritrade, ASEAN-German Climate Action Program, UNREDD Program, and RECOFTC.
The 20th AWG-FCC meeting was attended by the ASEAN Secretariat and representatives from 10 ASEAN member countries, namely Indonesia, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. For the next meeting, it was agreed that Myanmar would act as the host country. (AT Network)
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