Climate change to sink many Indonesian islands
Pastor Dale Morgan
Climate change to sink many Indonesian islands
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03 Dec 2007 00:03:25 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Sugita Katyal and Adhityani Arga
JAKARTA, Dec 3 (Reuters) - Many of Indonesia's islands may be swallowed
up by the sea if world leaders fail to find a way to halt rising sea
levels at this week's climate change conference on the resort island of
Bali.
Doomsters take this dire warning by Indonesian scientists a step further
and predict that by 2035, the Indonesian capital's airport will be
flooded by sea water and rendered useless; and by 2080, the tide will be
lapping at the steps of Jakarta's imposing Dutch-era Presidential palace
which sits 10 km inland (about 6 miles).
The Bali conference is aimed at finding a successor to the Kyoto
Protocol, which expires in 2012, on cutting climate warming carbon
emissions. With over 17,000 islands, many at risk of being washed away,
Indonesians are anxious to see an agreement reached and quickly
implemented that will keep rising seas at bay.
Just last week, tides burst through sea walls, cutting a key road to
Jakarta's international airport until officials were able to reinforce
coastal barricades.
"Island states are very vulnerable to sea level rise and very vulnerable
to storms. Indonesia ... is particularly vulnerable," Nicholas Stern,
author of an acclaimed report on climate change, said on a visit to
Jakarta earlier this year.
Even large islands are at risk as global warming might shrink their land
mass, forcing coastal communities out of their homes and depriving
millions of a livelihood.
The island worst hit would be Java, which accounts for more than half of
Indonesia's 226 million people. Here rising sea levels would swamp three
of the island's biggest cities near the coast -- Jakarta, Surabaya and
Semarang -- destroying industrial plants and infrastructure.
"Tens of millions of people would have to move out of their homes. There
is no way this will happen without conflict," Environment Minister
Rachmat Witoelar said recently.
"The cost would be very high. Imagine, it's not just about building
better infrastructure, but we'd have to relocate people and change the
way people live," added Witoelar, who has said that Indonesia could lose
2,000 of its islands by 2030 if sea levels continue to rise.
CRUNCH TIME AT BALI
Environmentalists say this week's climate change meeting in Bali will be
crunch time for threatened coastlines and islands as delegates from
nearly 190 countries meet to hammer out a new treaty on global warming.
Several small island nations including Singapore, Fiji, Kiribati, Tuvalu
and Caribbean countries have raised the alarm over rising sea levels
which could wipe them off the map.
The Maldives, a cluster of 1,200 islands renowned for its luxury
resorts, has asked the international community to address climate change
so it does not sink into a watery grave.
According to a U.N. climate report, temperatures are likely to rise by
between 1.1 and 6.4 degrees Celsius (2.0 and 11.5 degrees Fahrenheit)
and sea levels by between 18 cm and 59 cm (seven and 23 inches) this
century.
Under current greenhouse gas emission levels, Indonesia could lose about
400,000 sq km of land mass by 2080, including about 10 percent of Papua,
and 5 percent of both Java and Sumatra on the northern coastlines, Armi
Susandi, a meteorologist at the Bandung Institute of Technology, told
Reuters.
Indonesia, the world's fourth-most populous country, has faced intense
pressure over agricultural land for decades.
Susandi, who has researched the impact of climate change on Indonesia,
estimated sea levels would rise by an average of 0.5 cm a year until
2080, while the submersion rate in Jakarta, which lies just above sea
level, would be higher at 0.87 cm a year.
A study by the UK-based International Institute for Economy and
Development (IIED) said at least 8 out of 92 of the outermost small
islands that make up the country's borders are vulnerable.
TOO MANY ISLANDS TO COUNT
Less than half of Indonesia's islands are inhabited and many are not
even named. Now, the authorities are hastily counting the coral-fringed
islands that span a distance of 5,000 km, the equivalent of going from
Ireland to Iran, before it is too late.
Disappearing islands and coastlines would not only change the Indonesian
map, but could also restrict access to mineral resources situated in the
most vulnerable spots, Susandi said.
He estimates that land loss alone would cost Indonesia 5 percent of its
GDP without taking into account the loss of property and livelihood as
millions migrate from low-lying coastlines to cities and towns on higher
ground.
There are 42 million people in Indonesia living in areas less than 10
meters above the average sea level, who could be acutely affected by
rising sea levels, the IIED study showed.
A separate study by the United Nations Environment Programme in 1992
showed in two districts in Java alone, rising waters could deprive more
than 81,000 farmers of their rice fields or prawn and fish ponds, while
43,000 farm labourers would lose their job.
One solution is to cover Indonesia's fragile beaches with mangroves, the
first line of defence against sea level rise, which can break big waves
and hold back soil and silt that damage coral reefs.
A more expensive alternative is to erect multiple concrete walls on the
coastlines, as the United States has done to break the tropical storms
that hit its coast, Susandi said.
Some areas, including the northern shores of Jakarta, are already fitted
with concrete sea barriers, but they are often damaged or too low to
block rising waters and big waves such as the ones that hit Jakarta in
November.
"It will be like permanent flooding," Susandi said. "By 2050, about 24
percent of Jakarta will disappear," possibly even forcing the capital to
move to Bandung, a hill city 180 km east of Jakarta. (Editing by Megan
Goldin)