Climate Change

(Baca Versi Bahasa Indonesia)

Quoting from” The other half of climate change: Why Indonesia must adapt to protect its poorest people”, UNDP, 2007:

Impact on urban dwellers
A sea level rise of between 8 and 30 centimeters would also have a serious impact on coastal cities such as Jakarta and Surabaya, which will become even more vulneable to flooding and storm surges. This problem has been made worse in Jakrta becuase at the same time as the sea level has been rising, the ground level has been falling: the construction of tall buildings and the increasing extraction of ground water have been causing the land ti subside. But Jakrta has regularly been subject to regular flooding as a result of heavy rainfall: in early february 2007, flooding which lasted for about 22 days killed 57 people and forced 422,300 to leave their homes, of which 1,500 were destroyed. Total damaged was estimated to be about US$695 million.

One stdy has estimated that the combination of a sea level increase of about 0.5 metres and continuing land subsidence would lead to the permanent inundation of six locations – three in Jakarta (koasmbi, Penjaringan, and Cilincing) and three in Bekasi (Muaragembong, babelan, and Tarumajaya) – with atotal population of approximately 270,000 people. Many other parts of the country have recently experienced flood disasters, Heavy floods in Aceh, for example, at the end of 2006 took 96 lives and displaced 110,000 people who saw their livelihoods and assets destroyed. In 2007 in Sinjai, South Sulawesi,s everal days of floods destroyed roads and bridges and isolated 200,000 people. Later in the year, floods and landslides in Morowali, North Sulawesi forced 3,000 people to move into tents and barracks.


And from another chapter about The adaptation imperative:

Adaptation in urban areas
Many of the health issues need to be given particular emphasis in the urban areas. For Jkarta, for example, the Indonesian Red Cross has a climate-change campaign to improve clean water strage and reducing vulnearbility to dengue fever through cultivating fish that eat mosquito larvae. These activities are based in building local capacity and participatory planning – reaching out to youth and increasing awareness of adaptation among local government and community leaders.

As the floods in 2007 in Jakarta demonstrated, the vulnerable urban communities also need to be prepared in particular for the eventually of floods – and should have emergency plans in place.