“Ice asks no questions, presents no arguments, reads no newspapers, listens to no debates. It is not burdened by ideology and carries no political baggage as it changes from solid to liquid. It just melts.”

Dr. Henry Pollack, professor of Geophysics at University of Michigan, wrote that statement in his book A World without Ice as a counterargument for those who insist climate changing is a hoax. In his lecture on the first day of the Climate Project Asia-Pacific Summit 2011 in Jakarta, Dr. Pollack gave us the latest science updates. He said that the temperature was warming in North Asia and more in the Antarctic Peninsula.

The summit was held from Jan. 8-10 at the Jakarta Convention Center. The Climate Project is Al Gore’s climate change leadership program and has official branches in Australia, Mexico, Spain, Canada, US, UK, India, Indonesia and China. This year’s summit consisted of three intense days where the presenters are being trained by Mr. Gore’s presentation and are also being informed by the latest science updates about climate change. The summit brought about 300 volunteer presenters as the representatives of 17 countries including Indonesia, India, China and Australia.

Ice, said Dr. Pollack, was a good indicator to measure whether the temperature was getting warmer. Scientists said that there was evidence of global warming such as a decreasing amount of volume of ice; permafrost diminishing each year and an increasing amount of summer melting of Greenland ice.

There is some evidence of global warming occurrences in the Antarctic Peninsula including its temperature, which has risen to 3 degrees Celsius, about 67 percent of glaciers have retreated and the penguin population has shifted.

Dr. Pollack said that there were two factors that caused climate change, which are natural climate change and the human factor. Natural climate change includes solar variability — the sun does not radiate the same amount of energy all the time — and also volcanic activity.

The human factor includes deforestation, pollution and greenhouse gases (the amount of emitted CO2 has been rising gradually).

Inconvenient Youth members pose on stage. Courtesy Raden Ghea Garnita Dendadipura Moeis

The consequences caused by climate change are enormous and devastating. Here are some of the consequences: Coral bleaching as a response to warmer temperatures of the ocean; acidification because of rising CO2 levels, which lead to decreasing pH levels in the ocean, thus the ocean is more acidic; black carbon that is accelerating the melting of glaciers; acceleration of the hydrological cycle, which changes the climate; droughts or floods; and also the drastic rising sea level over the last decade. A 50-centimeter sea level rise can affect the coral ecosystem and a 1-meter-high sea level rise will displace hundreds of millions of people. In Jakarta, the sea level rises by 6 millimeters per year.

By the end of Dr. Pollack’s session, he told the audience that there were scientific solutions to help tackle climate change. Some of them are artificial trees that capture CO2 a thousand times faster than the real ones, and also CCS (Carbon Capture and Sequestration). Basically the concept of CCS is to capture the carbon produced by the burning of coal, oil, ad natural gas, then bury it underground, preferably as liquid matter, and make sure that it is not escaping into the atmosphere.

On the first evening of the summit, Al Gore gave a speech on the General Reception. He said that Indonesia had the potential to become a superpower of geothermal electricity. A map on the distribution of geothermal energy around the world shows that Indonesia is gifted with an abundance of very good geothermal energy all over the country. In addition to our potential clear carbon-free electricity, however, Indonesia has a very great possibility of suffering from the risk of climate change because of its low-lying islands. Furthermore, Indonesia also contributed large amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere by deforestation. Statistics show that Indonesia is ranked as the largest greenhouse gas producer from deforestation.

The second day of the summit was the day when participants were trained by Mr. Gore’s presentation. In his presentation, he explained how global warming happens. It occurs because some of the outgoing infrared radiation is trapped by the earth’s atmosphere and warms the earth. As the atmosphere grows thicker, more heat is trapped thus the temperature of the earth becomes warmer.

The increasing thickness of the atmosphere is proportional to the increasing volume of greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere.

Later on that day Mr. Gore communicated even more about the impacts of climate change. Some of them would be the continuation of frequent storms, which have been occuring over the last 5 years, the extinction of some species, and also more new diseases will be discovered. There are some ways to combat climate change such as using carbon-free electricity, conducting carbon trading in industrial companies and also planting trees.

On the last day of summit, youth presenters had our first gathering as the Inconvenient Youth (IY) — a youth-led program by Mr. Gore. IY presenters of this summit are representatives from Indonesia and Australia. After three days of training, this team is well-prepared to spread the message about climate change by conducting climate change presentations in our communities.

Raden Ghea Garnita Dendadipura Moeis
Faculty of Economy
University of Indonesia

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