Jakarta has dealt with such a situation from year-to-year. Since fine particulate PM 2.5 measurement began in 2014, Jakarta has always breached its annual air quality standards for the parameter by 200-300 percent.

Over the years, many studies have projected that due to the health impact of the long-term exposure to such a hazardous level, premature deaths, which currently stand at 3,700, could multiply to 22,100 per year in 2050 (Lelieveld, et al., 2015). A 2019 study concluded the current level of air pollution cuts Jakartans’ life expectancy by 2.3 years (AQLI, 2020).

An earlier study in 2015 warned that Jakarta’s air quality will keep deteriorating if evidence-based air quality management measures are not immediately implemented (Breathe Easy Jakarta, 2015). Yet, for many years, the government agencies responsible for adopting such measures have been conducting their bureaucratic work as usual without developing any strategic direction or an action plan that outlines how exactly the city will cut its polluting emissions. Ironically, as early as 1997, a World Bank study recommended that Jakarta adopt such evidence-based measures (Shah & Ngapal, 1997).

In 2018, 32 Jakarta residents decided to take the government actors responsible for controlling the air pollution to court. The defendants, including the President, three ministries and three provincial offices administering Greater Jakarta, chose to fight back. They followed a lengthy two-year court battle, involving the contributions from hundreds of scientific and bureaucratic documents and various experts.

Finally, the Central Jakarta District Court’s panel of judges will decide the case before the end of this month – when Jakarta's pollution is about to reach its annual worst.

The lawsuit is important for Jakarta residents for three main reasons. First, the case requires and demands that the government not only take action – but above all, deliver. Second, air quality management requires national and subnational level cooperation. The case has revealed that not all government agencies tasked to control air pollution are enthusiastic about tackling their responsibility. Third, the case sets a precedent for future urban air quality management, mainly by requiring the government to involve science in promulgating policies.

The first reason is crucial for Jakarta residents since they want to ensure the effective use of the taxes they pay. For many years, the government’s inadequate actions have failed to bring Jakarta’s air quality into compliance with internationally recognized standards. The court hearings revealed that there had been no evaluation of what has caused such failure, or any understanding of how to improve the programs in the right direction toward cleaner air.

In response to the early notice of the lawsuit, government agencies – particularly the Jakarta provincial government – promulgated some measures. In 2019, the Jakarta governor issued a set of instructions that included directing provincial agencies to conduct an emissions inventory study, implement emissions testing, and review emissions limits for stationary sources and improve enforcement against polluters.

In 2021, the Environment and Forestry Ministry amended the air quality index by taking into account pollution parameters PM 2.5 to tighten the national air quality standards.

The question, however, remains whether the measures deliver to Jakartans the clean air they long to breathe. When conflicting priorities are not managed and inefficiencies are not acknowledged, efforts remain unlikely to be effective. Hence, a court ruling can compel the government to ensure that the measures they adopt will deliver.

The second reason is lessons learned from history and from the physics of air that move across administrative boundaries. For years, emissions tests have been unenforced due to agencies’ conflicting priorities. The case mediation shows high-emitting projects beyond Jakarta’s reach, such as the planned incinerator plants across Jakarta, the addition of lanes of toll roads and several coal-fired power plants within 100 km of Jakarta. All project decisions involve the central government and its neighboring provinces, limiting Jakarta’s control.

A court decision needs to compel the President to properly address air pollution and public health issues and other development priorities that continue to deteriorate Jakarta’s air. The court decision must bind Jakarta, Banten and West Java to ensure more effective cooperation between the three provinces in controlling interprovincial emissions.

The last reason – to consider science – is relevant not only with air quality management but also in dealing with virtually all environmental problems, including climate change. In the hearing, the plaintiffs submitted a large number of scientific publications and documentary evidence, contrasting with only a few, primarily non-peer-reviewed studies, submitted by the seven government defendants.

The hearing has exposed the lack of data and scientific consideration in the air pollution control programs that the government adopted. Many of the publications submitted by the plaintiffs are academic-led studies that have been formally communicated to the government in the past – as early as 1997. Therefore, it is indispensable that a ruling reminds the government that any future actions in air quality management must consider scientific evidence.

Air quality today defines residents’ fate decades from now, affecting their children and their developmental health. All the diseases we know well – asthma, stroke, diabetes, coronary heart diseases and chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases – are linked to polluted air. As a medical expert testified in one of the hearing sessions, “Every reduction of air pollution saves human lives, prevent maladies and sufferings. Every reduction of air pollution matters.”

The UN special rapporteur on toxics and human rights reminded the state of its responsibility to prevent exposure to hazardous substances and waste. The court must decide where it stands: with the status quo or with the overwhelming scientific evidence to save lives.

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The writer is a senior adviser of Nexus3 Foundation, one of the plaintiffs in the Jakarta air pollution class action.