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Jokowi’s green agenda needs green reform
Financing Indonesia’s programs to mitigate climate change will require US$266 billion, or nearly Rp 3.5 quadrillion, until 2030, but the government is only able to provide between one fifth and one third of that amount.
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The 5MW Sambelia power plant on Lombok island, West Nusa Tenggara. There are seven such plants on the island that are expected to supply 8.5 percent of the island's daytime electricity needs, thereby cutting residents' reliance on higher-cost diesel-fired plants. (PLN/PLN)
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t may not be comforting to hear that in his first remarks on Indonesia on July 17, United States President Joe Biden predicted that Jakarta would sink in the next 20 years because of rising sea levels and that Indonesia would have to move its capital.
Nor is it comforting that United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres in comments on the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) singled out coal as the culprit that would “destroy our planet”.
Coal is front and center in Indonesia’s battle against climate change, as it is one of the country’s biggest export commodities and the most widespread and cheapest fuel to power the country.
But Biden and Guterres’ remarks, whether we like them or not, are a stark reminder that climate change, caused by carbon dioxide emissions, is spreading fast and the impact threatens to be catastrophic
According to the IPCC report, within the next two decades, world temperatures are likely to rise by more than 1.5 degree Celsius above preindustrial levels, breaching the ambition of the 2015 Paris climate agreement. The burning of fossil fuels and deforestation have led to a level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere today that is higher than at any time in the past 2 million years.
For Indonesia, climate change is no longer remote. It is getting closer to our archipelago. Extreme weather is becoming more normal, and it is a matter of time before the country suffers more severe flooding and droughts.
According to the World Research Institute (WRI), Indonesia is one of the 10 biggest producers of greenhouse gas emissions in the world and was ranked the eighth worst emitter of greenhouse gases after Brazil.
