The European Union also praised and expressed readiness to establish formal cooperation to support the success of Indonesia's FOLU Net Sink 2030 agenda.
The EU's stance follows three other major countries, namely Britain, the United States, and Norway, which have already expressed support for the FOLU Net Sink agenda.
The EU's stance was conveyed during a bilateral meeting between the Director General of Sustainable Forest Management of the MoEF Agus Justianto accompanied by the Director of Forest Product Processing and Marketing of the MoEF Krisdianto and the Director General for the Environment-EU Commission, Florika Fink-Hooijer accompanied by Assistant to the Director General for the Environment, Luis Planas Herrera on the sidelines of the UNFCCC COP27 Climate Change Conference in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, Monday, November 14, 2022.
"The EU expressed interest in strengthening cooperation to support the implementation of FOLU Net Sink through the preparation of an MoU with the scope of filing the gap MoU on cooperation between Indonesia and the United States, Norway, and the United Kingdom," Agus said.
The bilateral meeting opened with discussions leading up to the COP15 CBD biodiversity protection conference meeting in Montreal, Canada, this December.
In this regard, Indonesia is positioned to support the final stage of negotiations on the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (post-2020 GBF).
Agus then explained the progress of the implementation of Indonesia's FOLU Net Sink 2030 agenda.
This is a national policy that includes various efforts, mainly controlling deforestation, preserving biodiversity, protecting and restoring peatlands, and accelerating afforestation and reforestation actions on degraded lands.
Through the FOLU Net Sink agenda, Indonesia aims to achieve a level of greenhouse gas (GHG) absorption that is greater or at least balanced than its emissions in the forestry and other land use (FOLU) sectors.
Through FOLU Net Sink, Indonesia targets to achieve an emission level of minus 140 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) by 2030 in the forestry and land sectors.
The FOLU Net Sink agenda will support Indonesia's greenhouse gas emission reduction commitments contained in the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) document.
The FOLu Net Sink agenda has attracted the attention of a number of major countries. In a dialogue with Minister of Environment and Forestry Siti Nurbaya at the Indonesia Pavilion, Wednesday, November 9, 2022, the UK's Minister of State for Asia, Energy, Climate and Environment Lord Goldsmith, Norwegian Minister of International Development Tvinnereim, and Deputy Special Envoy of the President of the United States for Climate Rick Duke, also expressed praise and expressed readiness to work together to support the achievement of the agenda.
In addition to discussing FOLU Net Sink, the bilateral meeting between Director General Agus Justianto and Director General Florika Fink-Hooijer also discussed the development of the EU's deforestation free supply chain commodities policy.
The EU claims this policy will benefit Indonesia, as Indonesia has run a partnership to promote legal timber trade, FLEGT-VPA, well.
Indonesia will be included in a low risk country and given ease in implementing EUDR (EU Deforestation Regulation).
In this regard, Director General Agus explained various advances in SVLK implementation in Indonesia, and hoped that the EU could continue to strengthen efforts to socialize any developments in EUDR regulatory policies that could have implications for non-tariff barriers globally.
