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Commitment to Paris Agreement and Kalimantan dream
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Major pollutant: Black fumes come out of the exhaust pipe of a car that runs on diesel fuel during a free emissions test at Taman Mini Indonesia Indah culture and tourism park in East Jakarta. (JP/P.J. Leo)
U
nder its commitments to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Indonesia is required to submit its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), which detail the country’s plan to reduce emissions in line with the goals of the Paris Agreement.
In 2016, Indonesia outlined its first NDCs, which laid down very ambitious goals, with a voluntarily pledge to reduce emissions by 29 percent independently, or an emissions cut of up to 41 percent with international assistance.
Among the steps taken was the 2017 “National strategy on NDC implementation”, which prescribes nine strategies and indicators on how the implementation of NDCs will be achieved.
Only some of the larger cities and regencies have enacted climate change regulations, such as Bandung in West Java, Jakarta, and Surabaya in East Java. Climate provisions are enshrined in various laws such as regulations for the protection and empowerment of farmers, environmental management and protection, as well as through regulations on disaster management.
Most local government institutions remain unclear on how best to tackle climate change issues, let alone on how to implement NDCs at the local level.
Compounding these factors, Indonesia’s forest fires have hit hard again in 2019. Based on data from the Environment and Forestry Ministry, there were 1,700 fire hot spots this year as of August, higher by 39 hot spots compared to last year.
As almost half of Indonesia’s greenhouse gas emissions derive from land use and land use change related emissions, it is unlikely that we would achieve the annual NDC targets. One of the largest hot spot areas is Kalimantan, where at least 95 forest fires were spotted in August alone, with an alarming level of air pollution blanketing neighboring Sarawak in Malaysia.
