Welcome to SEARCA Knowledge Center on Climate Change Adaptation in Agriculture and Natural Resource Management in Southeast Asia (KC3)

Indonesia

Published on 20 September 2016
A worker pours water to extinguish a fire burning through his pineapple plantation in Tanah Putih, Riau, on June 26, 2013. (Reuters Photo) Human consequences Though generally framed as an environmental issue, for Indonesia the specter of human-induced climate change must be thought of as a multidimensional challenge as it has immediate and long-term economic, strategic and social implications. In terms of economic effects, there…
Published on 20 September 2016 Indonesia
“For Indonesia burning, it was the most significant event that we’ve seen during the 15-year satellite record,” according to Robert Field, a Columbia University research scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies who specializes in climate modeling and fire science. “The smoke plume stretched halfway around the world at the equator, and the fire-prone areas were blanketed in really thick smoke for six…
Published on 13 September 2016
Rizal Effendi Lukman, the deputy for international economic cooperation at the Office of the Coordinating Economic Minister, said the bilateral offset credit mechanism would amount to US$150 million during its three-year implementation in Indonesia. He said the mechanism would allow Japanese companies to earn carbon credits by helping Indonesia cut its carbon ( CO2 ) emissions. Rizal added that since 2013, 108 project feasibility studies…
Published on 5 September 2016
Read the article here: https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2016/08/26/indonesia-reducing-transboundary-haze/ Source: The Star Online | 26 August 2016
Published on 5 September 2016
This will not be a “conference-as-usual”: States have decided in the previous COPs that this is “the big one," being the deadline agreed by all countries of the world to reach a universal and ambitious climate agreement. Climate change is a concrete reality that amplifies natural disasters. As a result of greenhouse gas emissions, global warming leads to a rise of sea level and threatens…
Published on 23 August 2016
The number of Indonesian fires and hotspots in the 2016 dry season has so far been lower than last year. The director of law enforcement at Indonesia’s environment ministry said the ministry accepted the unpopular decision by Riau Police to close the pending cases on the 15 companies under investigation. Kalyana Sundram from the Malaysian Palm Oil Council (MPOC) said companies liable for fires in…
Published on 26 January 2016
In a paper published in Nature Communications last week (13 January), the scientists say their data contradicts earlier theories on the origins of ozone-rich air parcels above the tropical western Pacific, which were thought to descend naturally from a higher atmospheric layer. Ozone, a greenhouse gas, occurs naturally in the atmosphere. But it is also created from the reactions of pollutants produced by combustion…
Published on 11 January 2016
Like Suwadi, many who live in Indonesia’s capital suffer the brunt of severe floods year in and year out. For 2013, estimated economic losses and damages exceeded 7.5 trillion rupiah, with the biggest losses suffered by retailers. A capital prone to flooding “Jakarta is a city prone to flooding,” said Bambang Surya Putra from the Jakarta Disaster Management Agency. “Thirteen major rivers flow…
Published on 28 October 2015
The fires in Indonesia are truly out of control, having spiked in recent weeks to their highest levels in years. More than 300,000 Indonesians have sought medical help for respiratory illnesses linked to the choking haze. Pollution levels are up to five times above what the World Health Organization considers to be hazardous levels. Schools and airports have been closed. The Indonesian government has…
Published on 26 October 2015
By mid-October, there were more than 100,000 fires raging in the Indonesian provinces of Sumatra and Kalimantan that had released an estimated 995 million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere over the past four months. This is just short of 1 gigaton. When these fires are eventually extinguished they will certainly have released much more than a gigaton of carbon dioxide. The…
Published on 19 October 2015
Greenhouse gas emissions from peat fires in Borneo and Sumatra are currently exceeding emissions from the entire U.S. economy, putting Indonesia on track to be one of the world’s largest carbon polluters this year, according to data published a researcher at the University of Amsterdam. By Guido van der Werf’s calculations — posted on the Global Fire Emissions Database (GFED) website — carbon emissions…
Published on 19 October 2015
Happening just weeks before a major global climate conference, the fires underscore Indonesia's immense challenge in curbing emissions from agriculture and put into question its ability to meet its climate targets. Indonesia has just released a detailed climate action plan for the United Nations conference in Paris from Nov 30 to Dec 11. The UN hopes nations will agree on a global deal to…
Published on 28 September 2015
"Indonesia is committed to reducing emissions by 29 percent compared to a business as usual scenario by 2030," the government said in a plan submitted to the United Nations on Thursday that builds on a Sept. 2 draft. It gave few details of the current rate of growth of emissions in Southeast Asia's largest economy but said business as usual would lead to emissions…
Published on 21 September 2015
The activists said the draft document on Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC) lacked information on how the government hoped to achieve its new emissions-reduction target of 29 per cent, with no clear reference to funding sources, targets, baseline references or means of implementation. The draft is open for review on the Environment and Forestry Ministry website for public input. The review closes on Sept…
Published on 14 September 2015
El Niño has changed the weather pattern in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, caused by warmer temperatures in the Pacific Ocean. The Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) revealed that El Niño would strengthen and reach its peak in September and October 2015. However, this weather phenomenon is manageable. In the Agriculture Ministry’s Strategic Plan 2015-2019, climate change is among five agriculture development challenges. The…
Published on 14 September 2015
These days, as national leaders struggle with economic downturn, migrants, the Islamic State (IS) movement, geopolitical tensions and other pressing issues, many find it hard to focus on climate change, let alone make national commitments to reduce emissions. There is a danger that collective action will give way to collective malaise, and the very short window of opportunity to control climate change will slip…
Published on 7 September 2015
The increased commitment by one of the world's largest greenhouse gas emitters will be officially submitted to the United Nations later this month ahead of a major climate change summit in December. "We have reached the decision to reduce [emissions] by 29 percent by 2030," environment and forestry minister Siti Nurbaya Bakar told reporters. The pledge goes beyond Indonesia's 2009 agreement to slash emissions…
Published on 7 September 2015
“We intend to increase the contribution and we will do so,” Rachmat Witoelar, President Joko Widodo’s special envoy for climate change, told Reuters. “But we have to figure out the timeline.” Indonesia is among the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitters because of deforestation, peatland degradation and forest fires. Southeast Asia’s largest economy is under international pressure to curb deforestation and the destruction of carbon-rich…
Published on 25 August 2015
In hard-hitting remarks in Brussels, EU Climate and Energy Commissioner Miguel Arias Canete warned that the window of opportunity for 195 countries to agree a deal aimed at limiting the rise in global temperatures "is closing fast" and called for speeding up technical negotiations. So far he said 56 countries representing 61 percent of global green-house gas emissions have handed in their reduction pledges…
Published on 18 August 2015
For President Tong and his people, every high tide now carries the potential for flooding. They know first hand that climate change is not just an environmental crisis — it’s also a human rights disaster. Yet as their neighbor, Indonesia is the biggest exporter of thermal coal (rivaled only by Australia). How can we continue to rely so much on coal at a…
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