Otto Soemarwoto, Jakarta
The Bali climate change conference is over. How can we keep the momentum going? We know that climate change has begun. We know that the frequency and intensity of storms will likely increase. But we do not know yet when and where they will strike, except in very general terms. What then should we do, with incomplete information, competing needs, and scarce funds?
Let us borrow an ecological concept: Resilience. It is defined as “the capacity of an ecosystem to tolerate disturbance without collapsing into a qualitatively different state that is controlled by a different set of processes”.
We have to distinguish between strength and resilience. When we build a dam to prevent flooding, we calculate the strength of the dam to withstand a certain flood level, say a 200-year flood. When it fails, it collapses and cannot return to its former state. We have to rebuild it.
In resilience, strength is not the only determining factor. More important is the ability to rehabilitate oneself to one’s former state after a disturbance. Tropical forests are strong and resilient. The eruption of Mt. Krakatau completely annihilated the forests on the remaining Rakata Island. But now the forests have regrown.
Alang-alang grass has an even higher level of resilience. It can survive repeated burnings by virtue of its underground stems.
Ancient Mataram in Central Java, Sriwijaya in Sumatra and Majapahit in East Java were strong empires. But they collapsed and never reemerged. Thus too with Mesopotamia. It was a strong empire, but it crumbled because the extension of its irrigation system in an arid region caused excessive salination rendering the land unsuitable for agriculture. They were not resilient. We should learn from history.
A resilient Indonesia will be able to withstand shocks and rebuild itself when necessary. It is a flexible system, not a rigid one. It is not a fail-proof system.
Instead it allows the system to fail because of unexpected events, including climatic disasters, but to bounce back to its former state. The system learns from its failure. Humans have the ability to analyze and plan, thus making natural systems more adaptive.
To make Indonesia resilient we should first and foremost get serious about human development. With better education and the right information, the people can understand what climate, climate variability and climate change mean.
At present much of the information in circulation does not clearly distinguish among the three. For example, in many newspapers El Nino has been labeled as a form of climate change, which it is not. It is an example of climate variability that has been with Earth for many thousands of years.
While it is true that there are increasing trends of crop losses and dengue fever due to droughts and floods, we cannot finger climate change as the culprit. These problems are caused by many factors and climate change is just a contributing factor.
A very major factor in the increasing trends of crop losses and failures of hydropower plants is the critical condition of many river basins. In the case of dengue fever, population growth, urbanization, and lax monitoring of mosquito larvae are contributing factors.
There is also a tendency to exaggerate climate change until it becomes a doomsday forecast. Exaggeration grabs headlines, but it often leads to the wrong diagnoses, as in the examples above. It also leads to inaction, because of a sense of powerlessness.
Climate change is God’s will, people say. The pressure of developing countries on the developed ones to provide billions of dollars in cash and technology creates the perception that without these things, climate mitigation and adaptation cannot be done. And yet many of these problems can be fixed effectively and cheaply with simple technologies.
Increasing energy efficiency in transportation and houses, which can considerably contribute to reducing CO2 emissions, can be achieved by providing incentives to use energy-saving light bulbs, building good, comfortable and safe sidewalks and bicycle lanes, limiting the number of parking places by prohibiting on-road parking and increasing parking fees, and establishing good public transportation. Serious and sustainable rehabilitation of the river basins will considerably lessen the crop losses and the failures of hydropower plants. Better public education and mosquito surveillance will reduce hemorrhagic fever outbreaks.
It is obvious that these policies are fair and benefit the poor. After all, climate change requires that poverty alleviation be tackled seriously. The poor are the most vulnerable and they are affected disproportionately by climate disasters. With a successful anti-poverty program, people would learn to make wise choices.
The pressure on forests would diminish, allowing them to regenerate, even without reforestation, as has been shown experimentally. A successful human development program would give the planet greater resilience.
Vigorous family planning is a must. So is rational land use. While in certain cases money and high technology are essential, without these down-to-earth measures that can be carried out by the people themselves, and in the process provide jobs, high technology will be useless and much money will be squandered.
Building resilience must be done in a way that is sensitive to local conditions. Since Indonesia is very large and diverse, formulating a single strategy for resilience would not be wise. It would be too rigid.
The national strategy should only outline the principal features of resilience. It should be a broad strategy which gives clear guidance to the provinces, the public, academia, the business community and NGOs.
Local people must decide what works best for them. Consequently, democracy is also a prerequisite for resilience.
The writer is a professor emeritus of environment at Padjadjaran University, Bandung. He can be reached at ottosoe@attglobal.net.
