Climate Change in Indonesia, Its Impact and Solution

I Nyoman Budi Satriya

            Over the past 20 years, the world has faced many problems, particularly in environment sustainability. As we know, during the globalization era, many industries which are related with food, textiles, and machinery have been built to accommodate people’s needs. On the one hand, these phenomenon’s have positive impacts to human lives, but on the other hand this might create global warming. Global warming is one of the greatest issues these days. It causes climate change all over the world and might be responsible to the world’s much environment disaster that affects people lives. For example, in many parts of the world climate change affect many natural disasters like droughts, floods, sea level rise, hunger and poverty, which are very rare if we look back before the 19^th century. According to Mirza (2001, p.233) increasing incidence of bad weather and natural disasters which are caused by climate change are generally experienced by the developing countries which are particularly susceptible to extreme weather changes. In this case, Indonesia is one of the developing countries in the world which are affected by global warming and climate change. This essay will discuss about the effect of climate change that has occurred in Indonesia, then it will examine about the major cause of climate change and in what way government has already done to reduce about its impact. 

            It has been claimed that Indonesia is famous for the richness of its natural diversity. However, among the industrialized countries Indonesia continues to occur environmental degradation and this situation are exacerbated by the increasing greenhouse gas emissions from forest fire and environmental damage (Measey 2010, p.43). As Perri (2011) in Parry, Canziani and Palutikof (2007) show marine ecosystem is strongly influenced by climate change which interferes with the management of fishing gear and fishing time. It has affected many sectors from agricultural, forestry and marine environment, particularly in ocean environment which has suffered the greatest impacts of climate change. This is caused by the destruction of fish habitat especially coral reef and mangrove, the decline rate of marine benthic and plankton, the migration of fishing ground and also the increase rate of fish disease due to ocean acidification. Furthermore, many fishermen are finding it really difficult in setting regular time to start fishing, because of the unfixed weather. Moreover, due to the rapid change in marine conditions, fish also find it difficult to find the right time to start spawning or begin finding the suitable place in order to nurture their eggs. These all can both affect environmental sustainability and economic welfare of fishermen. In addition, the destruction of marine environment can reduce sea’s ability to absorb carbon dioxide (Co2) that is much contained in the atmosphere.

            The increased rate of human population is believed to be the main cause for climate change phenomenon and leads to the increased rate of human necessities, particularly in foods, clothes and housing. Many fabrics have been made and many timbers have been cut to become raw material. The destructive of human activities such as illegal logging, and deforestation may increase the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere (NASA 2015). The increased rate of fabric and the decreased rate of forests make exhaust gas accumulated in the atmosphere. Consequently, this output process interacts with oxygen and carbon in the air and causing what we have called now as the greenhouse effect. It means that, light from the sun passes through directly into the earth and earth cannot have enough capability to absorb and dissolve it since many trees and coral reefs are destructed. This natural effect only can be neutralized by the increasing oxygen rate in the air. Therefore, the existence of trees and coral reefs become very important in order to minimize excessive levels of CO2 in the air.

            Rising sea levels, extreme weather and the destruction of ecosystems are several impacts which are caused by climate change in Indonesia. Nevertheless, the government is aware about this and started thinking about findings the best solution to reduce the impact of climate change. To tackle this situation, Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) which involved many stakeholders include local government is Indonesia's main priority. According to Farhan and Lim (2013) Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) is defined as sustainable and integrated management activities in coastal areas which involve many coastal communities that connect directly to the coastal areas. The management system must be environmentally sustainable, for example, in 2009 in order to maintain the diversity of living marine resources, Indonesia with five other countries formed the Coral Triangle Initiative (CTI), which aims to preserve the 75,000 square kilometers of coral reef area (Soesilo 2014). Furthermore, many programs have been built to reduce the impacts of climate change, such as beach cleaning program and some campaigns for fisheries communities to empowering them and increase their awareness of keeping their environment clean and more sustainable. In 2011 Indonesia forest ministry started the program to plant more than 1 million trees, particularly in coastal areas. This program is called “Reboisasi” which means making rehabilitation to destroyed forests and to get it revitalized again. Also, in the marine area, our government has launched the “Sehati” program to revitalize damage coral reefs and also mangroves.

            In conclusion, this essay has discussed about the effect of climate change in Indonesia and marine environment which is suffered the greatest impact of climate change biologically and economically. It has shown that increasing rate of human’s population lead to a massive natural exploitation in order to fulfill their necessities. Moreover, deforestation occurred in line with increase growth in fabric and motor vehicle. Indeed, the destruction of coral reefs and mangrove in coastal environment upturn the risks of Carbon dioxide (CO2) content in the atmosphere. Nonetheless, Indonesia government is very concerned with this issue and pay more attention relates withmanagement integrationwhich involving multiple stakeholders in coastal management. In addition, more active involvement of the coastal community helped reduce the impact of climate change.

References

Farhan, A. R. & Lim, S. 2013, 'Improving vulnerability assessment towards Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM): a case study of small islands in Indonesia', Journal of Coastal Conservation, vol. 17, no. 3, pp. 351-367.

Measey, M. 2010, 'Indonesia: a vulnerable country in the face of climate change', Global Majority E-Journal, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 31-45.

Mirza, M. M. Q. 2003, 'Climate change and extreme weather events: can developing countries adapt?', Climate policy, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 233-248.

Nasa 2015, A Blanket around the earth,http://climate.nasa.gov/causes/,accessed 4 February 2015.

Parry, M. L. 2007, Climate Change 2007: impacts, adaptation and vulnerability: contribution of Working Group II to the fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Cambridge University Press.

Soesilo,I.2014, Climate change:Indonesia's adaptation and mitigation effort, http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/04/26/climate-change-indonesia-s-adaptation-and-mitigation-efforts.html, accessed 6 February 2015.