•    HOME   
•    NEWS   
•    BUSINESS   
•    INTERNATIONAL   
•    TECH   
•    SPORTS   
•    LIFE & TIMES   
•    OPINION   
•    MY JAKARTA   
•    BLOGS   
•    EYEWITNESS   

Fifty-two Indonesians will take part in a climate change project launched by former US Vice President Al Gore.

The effort, aimed at raising environmental awareness, gets under way in Melbourne, Australia, on Saturday and is slated to run through Monday.

The participants will be trained in person by Al Gore, who is one member of a team that was awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, to present a slide show he used during the Academy Award-winning documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth.”

In April 2008, a senior official at Indonesia’s State Ministry for the Environment, Amanda Katili, underwent the same training in Montreal, Canada.

“It is the second time for Al Gore to hold the training, but it will be the first time it will be held in the Asia-Pacific region,” said Yani Shaloh, one of the participants leaving for Australia today.

Yani said that after she applied for the training she tried not to get her hopes up because the program was very competitive.

“We were required to write two essays concerning our goals for the training and to answer questions on our knowledge of climate change and the UNFCCC [UN Framework Convention on Climate Change],” she said. “Because the training would be useless if we don’t have basic knowledge about the issues.”

She said she was optimistic the training for Indonesian participants would ultimately have a significant effect because the group included representatives of a wide range of sectors.

“There are people from the business sector, environment, media, education, local community, researchers, trade officers — I even heard that there is one teacher,” she said. “I am from the forestry sector, so we can really imagine how diverse the audience will be.”

She said that after the training each of the participants would be required to present the slide show five times before November and five more times before July next year. “This is a very strong commitment that we all must keep because [climate change] is a global issue and it’s impossible for just a few people” to raise awareness around the world about its harmful effects.

Another participant, Ricky Rositasari, a marine geology researcher from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences, said those taking part in the program would face an overwhelming amount of “homework” after the training concluded.

She said she would coordinate with the environment ministry and the Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology. “This is a very big issue and we can’t do it on our own.”

Climate Project’s Asia-Pacific Summit will be hosted by the Australian Conservation Foundation.