Mitigating climate change: We need more Engineers and Designers

Tony Djogo 

The Bali conference on climate change has kicked off, with more than 10,000 participants from 186 - 192 countries attending this lavish and expensive event. Fantastic! Will it effectively bring about constructive issues, institutions, policies, or the most critical outputs in the form of realistic follow-up plans, designs, and activities to be implemented by each country, institution, stakeholder, or even individual? I have attended many different meetings, seminars, workshops, symposiums, and conferences in different countries in Indonesia. Those events often discussed interesting and useful issues and produced good-quality reports. However, who will follow up with planning, design, and its application or implementation on the ground level? I have noticed that in a meeting with 200 people, only 15 – 20 people probably speak well with good arguments, insights, or reasons about the issues. 

In the working group discussions with 30 – 40 participants, only 5 -6 people talked constructively. What happened with 10,000 participants? How many could contribute with a sound logical argument that could be transformed into applicable follow-up plans or designs? Most of the output of the meetings is often dominated by the conceptualized issues. Even in a meeting or conference that will only focus on local or domestic issues,  there was no clear or very little evidence that the outputs of the meeting have been successfully transformed into policy, institutions, or technology design. 

The main message I want to discuss here is what and how we could apply the findings or output of this extravaganza? Many meetings often end up in reports rather than in the technical design or blueprint for its implementation. Climate change has been warned since the 18th century, but people and governments do not care too much. The exploitation of nature and the rapid growth of economy and industry have been blamed for the dramatic global climatic change. Could we halt the shift? Seems Impossible. We may only slow down it very little. Otherwise, we must adapt to new lifestyles and the consequences of environmental changes. Or we have to be prepared for the massive, powerful, but evolutionary or revolutionary developed calamity that will destroy our planet. When it is combined with natural disasters or wars, the impact is unimaginably profound and destructive. 

 In the last few years, the debates on climate change have been so fierce that they attracted many people and policymakers and created new opportunities. I was so surprised to read or see that there are more- and more experts on carbon, climate change, or global warming whose specialization was previously on the other science or disciplinary aspects. 

 I was surprised to hear a local government official eloquently speak about carbon market opportunity while his local people are poor and do not understand what he says. The more tragic thing is that there are more discussions or networks, but there is no clear evidence of their application in the field. We should applaud and admire the efforts of the national or international scientists or experts who have exposed interesting data and given warnings on the latent and potential damage that climate change may bring to us. 

 The responses to the findings have been variably anticipated by the government, NGOs, private sector, and local communities. The most prominent reactions for actions often come from the international arena. The draft and development of consensus, pact, protocol, etc., have often been so popular, but its implementation at the domestic level has often been questionable. 

 Let us see the 1970s when experts, policymakers, and environmental activists discussed sustainable development. The more they discussed, and the more research undertaken, the more the environment and natural resources deteriorated. Thereny meetings, consensus, or agreements have been ratified and signed. However, international responses through conventions or agreements negatively correlate with the rapid destruction of forests and other ecosystems at the very domestic or local levels. 

There needed to be clearer responses from the government to take into account and incorporate into development design, budgeting, and implementation. The government often thought it was an international problem, so they did not anticipate by providing counterpart funding for action but relying upon international aid or grants. When there was no more international aid, nothing happened. The change in the political situation or regime may halt some international initiatives. 

 I visited and met with experts in several international institutions working with research and advocacy, seminars, or conferences, who are often in very uncertain situations where many donors have fewer interests in supporting research, campaigns or advocacy,  meetings, and conferences. Too many of these activities have absorbed millions of dollars but the impacts needed to be clearer on the people and environments. There are more NGOs or other voluntary organizations that have developed networks, alliances, forums, and consortiums. Still, many NGOs are getting weaker, collective action has weakened, or the networks are disappearing or are not active anymore. When there was still a lot of money received from the donors, the activities were clear and busy, but nothing happened afterward when the money dried up. 

The other gloomy thing was that the money allocated for institutional or individual development was far more than the money spent at the ground level for community development, environmental protection, technical design, etc. Many national or local NGOs or government institutions have often developed low-quality proposals and project planning and designs, which, of course, could be more attractive to donors. This is worsened by the inappropriate and low-quality project design and implementation on the ground level. 

Competition between local, national, and international NGOs is also apparent. Generally, international NGOs are more successful in securing funding from the donors. They have experts in developing proposals, project planning, design, and implementation. They have better governance and accountability mechanisms. But still, more and more national or international NGOs are more interested in conceptualizing the environment and development issues rather than translating it into clear and applicable design and implementation. Local and small NGOs or even government organizations at the ground level who should be able to work directly with local people and environments are weak or not eligible to run the project appropriately. 

Everywhere I discussed with local, national, or international NGOs, I found more people with good skills being promoted to higher positions by sending to Master's or PhD Degrees. Those who used to work at the technical level have been involved in research or campaign activities rather than field technical works. Those who used to talk about technical issues then become research experts and conceptualize the issues rather than transform them into design. It is often difficult to find people at the NGOs who talk about soil and water conservation, tree improvement, tree planting techniques, or designing forest management units. They spoke a lot fluently about the local issues related to international concepts or globalized perspectives of local issues, which often never return to local design. This is an impediment that may also happen to the endeavor to mitigate climate change. 

Information on climate change internationally designed and developed protocol consensus or agreement have often never reached the people at the local level who obviously suffer from climate change. We have more and more researchers or experts voiced their research findings or their worry or disgruntled over policy failures for anticipating climate change. Still, we have yet to hear about the work of the engineers, designers, or technicians about the actual situation on the ground. 

More engineers or technicians then become politicians and local leaders talking about development conceptually or working in the unclear domain of the development process. It is then worsened by the government's approach to anticipating environmental destruction through a massive project budget and more ceremonial and political activities rather than small-scale, community-based, locally attractive design and implementation. For more than the last 30 years, the government has implemented natural resource rehabilitation programs. The government launched massive reforestation or regreening programs or projects, but the impacts could have been better. The national movement on land and forest rehabilitation, which was designed to spend trillions of Rupiahs, has, in fact, flavored with political and business interests rather than considering the professional technical design and implementation as well as monitoring and implementation on the ground level. 

 I was worried so much that the fate of the endeavor in mitigating climate will have the same destiny as the efforts on community development, rural development, integrated conservation and development, MDG, or sustainable development, where all the brilliant ideas have evaporated from research, conferences or political debates rather than consolidated and condensed into straightforward technical design with transparent model of implementation monitoring and implementation supported by clear institutions and enforcement mechanisms. 

While waiting for the George Bush administration or China and India to support the Kyoto Protocol or whatever new framework is to be developed, let us start to think about design and implementation at the national or even local level. Otherwise, it would be too late. Let us wait for the output of this meeting, consolidate and compile them, and then transform them into the technical design at our own organization with consistent management, governance, and continuous funding available from government resources first. 

Global warming cannot be easily anticipated, but we can do small things at the very local level with clear designs for reconstructing nature. We already have a lot of researchers, policymakers, campaigners, or observers who are often supported by celebrities to discuss the danger of global warming. What they have talked about or discussed might be challenging to undertake on the ground level. One of the follow-up activities of this conference is training, upgrading, and consolidating engineers and designers or technicians to work at the local level.