Workshop on 'Water and Climate': Published on 26 May 2007

I have just come back from attending an International Joint workshop on ‘Water and Climate’ which is organized jointly by four agencies:

• The State Ministry of Environment, Government of Indonesia
• The Ministry of Public Works,Government of Indonesia
• Co-operative Program on Water and Climate
• Indonesia Water Partnership

This was conducted in Jakarta during 23- 24 May, 2007. This workshop was intended to warm up the Indonesian Government in successfully preparing for the up coming COP-13 to be
held in Bali during December, 2007.

Around 300 people from different parts of the world attended this meeting. Notably, there is a large Dutch delegation which is having a partnership with Indonesian Government related
to Climate Change.

We had several discussions on the impact of Climate Change in Indonesia. Since Indonesia is a developing country (not a major polluter), its more focused on how to adapt to the changing of climate. We have also discussed about side events during COP-13, and provided some recommendations to the Ministry of Environment.

COP (Conference of Parties) is the annual Climate Change meeting of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). UNFCCC is an international environmental treaty produced at the Earth Summit, held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. The treaty aimed at reducing emissions of greenhouse gas in order to combat global warming.

Since the UNFCCC entered into force on 24 March 1994, the parties (ratified Countries) have been meeting annually in Conferences of the Parties (COP) to assess progress in dealing with climate change. This meeting COP- 13 will be the thirteenth meeting, which is going to be held during 3-14 December, 2007 in Bali, Indonesia. Around 10,000 participants from 189 countries are going to be attending this vital environment meeting. The Government of Indonesia already booked around 6,500 rooms for this conference.