THE United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change finished its COP26 meeting in Glasgow, Scotland,
Many were hoping for a new commitment from the meeting. Unfortunately, the meeting failed to produce anything substantial in the fight against climate change. One sticking point was financing.
The proposed global financing for climate action in developing countries was not endorsed.
Climate activists are concerned that without this arrangement, the actions by developing countries are again delayed.
The longer the delay, the higher will be the cost for mitigation.
There is no denying that the world must work harder to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to a level consistent with the 1.5° limit, now recommended by climate scientists, if the world is to avoid a disastrous outcome.
The meeting, however, agreed that all must strive to achieve net zero by 2050.
This means global GHG emissions must not exceed the carbon sequestration capacity of the planet.
World forests are recognised as one of the most efficient sequester of GHG emissions.
COP26 unanimously decreed a global moratorium on deforestation if the world is to achieve the 2050 net zero target.
Indonesia is among countries that have pledged to end deforestation.
Implementing such a policy is not easy though since Indonesia's many islands are spread far and wide.
It is a massive problem to monitor the large swathes of tropical forests spanning the country of more than 270 million people.
As countries increasingly punish deforestation practices by banning imports, Indonesia has no choice but to show evidence of its commitment to "no deforestation".
Without such evidence, the future of its land-based commodities, including palm oil, rubber, and timber, may face import restrictions by importing countries.
Monitoring encroachment on forest areas would be next to impossible and very expensive to undertake physically.
This is where satellite imagery technology shows promise as the most cost-effective option.
Over the years, thanks to the development in artificial intelligence technology (AI), the accuracy in interpreting the images has vastly improved.
A company called Planet operates the world's largest constellation of optical earth observation satellites, capturing more than 10 times imagery than all other providers combined, with an extensive near-daily archive of every location on earth.
Planet's unique global scanning system captures the Earth's entire land mass on a near-daily basis at medium resolution. In addition, Planet offers a rapid revisit high-resolution capability, which offers 0.50m resolution between two and five revisits per day.
Indonesia has no doubt made the right decision to commit to "no deforestation" as the country pledges to demonstrate to the world that it is serious about fighting climate change.
Indonesia recognises that there are serious repercussions of climate change for its population and the economy.
It is the effective enforcement of the no-deforestation policy that presents challenges.
With the deployment of satellite imagery, monitoring problems are reduced.
Malaysia has also been the subject of much international criticism on deforestation. This is even though the country has been maintaining forest cover at more than 50 per cent.
Oil palm cultivation has been singled out as the culprit in the cutting down of forests.
As the palm oil industry shows more evidence of the untruth in such claims, the criticism has been much less.
Instead, the attention is now turned to Indonesia and, to some extent, Cambodia.
With the availability of satellite imagery as a tool to show proof of no deforestation, its deployment, together with AI to decipher the images, will put an end to this baseless criticism.
It is time for Asean countries to come together to debunk these claims.
The claims have created problems not just for palm oil export but also the export of rubber products.
Much of this came to light in recent years when importing countries, especially the European Union and United States, put up non-tariff barriers to palm oil trade.
Asean should not discount going to World Trade Organisation for redress.
The writer is a professor at the Tan Sri Omar Centre for STI Policy, UCSI University