…as a finance minister, I believed it was my responsibility to link climate change to finance ministers' discourses.
Jakarta (ANTARA) - Indonesia was the first country to push the international community to start taking financial and economic aspects into consideration when discussing climate change mitigation and impacts, Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said. Speaking at the Indonesia Net-Zero Summit in Jakarta on Saturday, she highlighted that there were no finance ministers engaging in climate change conversations before Indonesia hosted the 13th Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Bali in 2007.

Indrawati noted that a severe global financial crisis broke out the same year, which led finance ministers to think that discussing climate change issues could make things even more complicated then.

"For that reason, Indonesia emerged as the first initiator, inviting finance and development minister(s) to start drawing attention to climate change," she said.

Indrawati, who was then serving as finance minister in President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's government, made efforts to bring her international counterparts together to discuss climate change issues at the COP meeting, whose previous editions were dominated by environment ministers.

The Indonesian state treasurer further said that the world needed to start taking notice of the fact that actions aimed at tackling climate change, such as carbon emission reduction, require strong backing from the financial and economic sectors.

"If economic and financial policy makers had no comprehension of this matter, they would remain mere spectators. Therefore, as a finance minister, I believed it was my responsibility to link climate change to finance ministers' discourses," she explained.

In response, she added, the then World Bank president Robert B. Zoellick decided to introduce a session known as the Bali Breakfast at the organization's annual meetings in 2008, ultimately globalizing finance-based discussions on climate change.

At the Indonesia Net-Zero Summit, Indrawati received the Climate Hero Award for her commitment to addressing climate change through economic and financial corridors.


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Translator: Muhammad H, Tegar Nurfitra
Editor: Azis Kurmala
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