Helping Indonesia tackle forest fire should be Australia’s urgent priority: HSI

Paris Climate Agreement has stressed on the importance of saving forests, and Australia is going to help Indonesia on protecting its forests.

Under the agreement, Australia will have the opportunity to help countries like Indonesia tackle forest fires and eventual forest clearance, which worsens biodiversity and climatic damage.

Humane Society International campaigned for global forest protection in Paris where delegations from around 200 countries came together for a common cause. HSI argues almost a quarter of all carbon emissions is a result of deforestation.

HSI climate change adviser Peg Putt said “Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation” had been accepted as a necessary method to protect forests. It is important that everyone puts their best foot forward to move away from fossil fuels.

“There is an important opportunity for Australia to act to protect forests in our region in the new Paris Agreement which enables results-based payments for forest conservation, including through the use of a markets mechanism,” Putt said in a media release.

"We should not simply wait for the 2017 review of domestic climate change arrangements but move now to help Indonesia - and help Australia meet its new Paris Agreement commitments to increase its ambition to reduce emissions.”

Putt added Australia should consider helping a country like Indonesia as an urgent priority. “Helping Indonesia suppress fires is a rare cost-effective and large-scale readily available opportunity to lift ambition while more complex domestic programmes might be geared up,” he said.

"The global scale of the pollution from the carbon emissions from burning of peat forests is so great that helping Indonesia should be seen by Australia as an urgent priority.”

The Guardian called the Paris agreement as “the world's greatest diplomatic success.” The “ambitious” climate agreement seeks to limit emissions to relatively safe levels.

According to Greenpeace International Executive Director Kumi Naidoo, “the human race has joined in a common cause.”

Contact the writer at feedback@ibtimes.com.au, or let us know what you think below.