JakartaPost-Jan 18, 2023
We are reaping what we have sown. As extreme weather and floods have besieged us lately, many have come to realize that climate change is real and we are the main culprit of so many environmental disasters happening on Earth. “In Indonesia and many parts of the world, climate and hydrometeorological disasters at an unprecedented scale are happening, resulting in a great number of victims and financial losses,” Leonard Simanjuntak, Greenpeace country director for Indonesia, said at the Goethe Institute Jakarta on Dec. 14, 2022. The scale is predicted to keep on escalating if we do not rein in the main cause of the problem, which is carbon emissions. Carbon dioxide emissions have increased exponentially from year to year. According to Ourworldindata.org, the world emitted six billion tons of CO2 in 1950. The number almost quadrupled in 1990 with the global carbon emissions amounting to 22 billion tons. Last year, the world emitted 37.12 billion tons of CO2 emissions, precipitating global warming at an alarming level. Indonesia also plays a part in this grave problem. In 2021, the country generated approximately 619.28 million tons of CO2, with Jakarta contributing a major portion of the emissions. According to Jakarta’s Transportation Transformation: Reviewing the Transport Sector’s Zero Emission Target by 2050, a new study by Greenpeace Indonesia and the Resilience Development Initiative (RDI) launched at the Goethe Institute Jakarta on Dec. 14, 2022, the capital generated 22.8 million tons of CO2 in 2020, with fossil-fueled private vehicles making more than two-thirds of the amount. “Jakarta contributes significantly to Indonesia’s carbon emissions,” Leonard said. “But the city, with its current status, fiscal capacity and political importance can [also] be a differentiator and role model for many other parts of Indonesia for its response to the climate crisis.” Jakarta has recently set a target for the city to reach net-zero emissions (NZE) by 2050. Read more at: https://www.thejakartapost.com/paper/2023/01/18/jakarta-aims-to-achieve-net-zero-emissions-by-2050.html.
