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Promise for smart, green capital city is possible: GGGI
Indonesia’s capital relocation plan could be an opportunity for the country to develop its very first smart, green city from scratch, said GGGI director general Frank Rijsberman.
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An aerial view of construction activities on the Balikpapan-Samarinda toll road in the Samboja area in Kutai Kartanegara, East Kalimantan. The Samboja toll gate will be one way to access the new capital city from Samarinda and Balikpapan. (JP/Akbar Nugroho Gumay)
“We can assure that we will build a smart and forest city. We will not damage the heart of Borneo.”
This was the promise made by Public Works and Public Housing Minister Basuki Hadimuljono as President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s administration gears up to relocate Indonesia’s capital city from Jakarta to North Penajam Paser and Kutai Kartanegara in East Kalimantan, which is mostly forests.
Environmentalists have expressed concerns that Borneo, the island which Kalimantan shares with Malaysia and Brunei, will see its rainforests — home to the few orangutans left on Earth — being sacrificed for the capital city’s development on top of the existing mines and oil palm plantations.
The Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI), an international organization that works with governments and private sectors around the world for green growth development, chooses to look at the glass half full.
Indonesia’s capital relocation plan could be an opportunity for the country to develop its very first smart, green city from scratch, said GGGI director general Frank Rijsberman. And it’s not an impossible task, so long as there’s a clear master plan on green and sustainable development, he added.
“We have seen in other countries examples where there is a good opportunity for the green and smart new city [to] be developed with the support of a green masterplan for implementing the city’s development, and taking away the pressure of [the current] capital,” Rijsberman said Thursday in a limited press briefing.
Canberra is one example. It implements a 100 percent renewable energy policy and a clear plan to make itself a zero-waste city.
