Now a major scientific study, just published in Nature Communications, has found that Indonesia’s exposure to a key climate change threat, sea level rise, is 14 times worse than was previously realized. This makes it by far the most exposed country in the world, accounting for a staggering 11 percent of the global total of land area that is at-risk (at less than two meters above mean sea level). 

Most Indonesians live in coastal communities. Tens of millions of them will increasingly be directly affected by extreme flooding. Even seemingly small changes in sea-level have enormous human impacts. A 10cm rise transforms a 1 in 100-year extreme flooding event into a 1 in 33-year event. With a 20 cm rise, it becomes a 1 in 11-year event.  By 2050 extreme flooding will be annual events in many parts of the world. But Indonesia will reach this point far sooner because its sea-level is rising about four times faster than the global average, driven by climate change and other factors, such as groundwater extraction. 

The authors of the new study note that their findings are important because Indonesia “is not usually prioritized in discussions of areas most at risk of SLR (sea level rise).” That’s an understatement that applies equally well to many other climate hazards.  When taken together, this makes the country a global hot spot of climate impacts that will test the nation’s political, economic, and social resilience, and have major consequences for its regional neighbors.

Indonesia’s location, between the Pacific and Indian oceans, uniquely exposes it to the naturally occurring El Nino and La Nina climate pattern, which is globally the most significant cause of extreme weather. Climate change is expected to double the frequency of El Nino events in little more than a decade. The country will not only experience more severe weather, but also more frequent swings from extreme heat and drought to severe floods. The diminishing time for recovery in between these events will undermine the country’s food security and resilience.

Scientists have determined that by 2040, at 2 degrees Celsius of warming, Southeast Asia’s per capita crop production may decline by one-third. In the past, when faced with climate-related food shortages, Indonesia has imported additional food, as it did on an unprecedented scale during the severe drought of 1998. However, climate impacts occurring outside of the region will further diminish the options available to Indonesia to offset the domestic effects.

Its fisheries are also in trouble. Indonesians get more than half of their animal protein from fish, but fish species are already moving out of the region to escape warming waters, and the region’s coral reefs, the “nursery” for roughly 10 percent of the world’s fish supply, are degrading rapidly; globally, 70- 90 percent of reefs will have collapsed at 1.5 degrees C of warming. 

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