JAKARTA: Pressure continues to mount on Indonesia to contain its rapidly spreading forest and peatland fires. The ecological disaster now poses a threat to not only the health and livelihoods of millions at home but also populations across its South-East Asian neighbours, and not least to global climate stability.
By late August, uncontrollable blazes had scorched nearly 900,000 hectares of land. Alarming satellite data compiled by independent forest monitor Nusantara Atlas showed this burned area has decisively outpaced the figures recorded during the catastrophic 2019 and 2023 fire seasons.
In the flames’ wake has come the suffocating, toxic haze that routinely chokes communities in Kalimantan, Sumatra and Papua, which has drifted across borders to trigger hazardous air quality alerts as far away as Vietnam.
Yet localised air pollution represents only one facet of this unfolding catastrophe. The rampant fires tearing through Indonesia’s major islands are simultaneously discharging astronomical quantities of greenhouse gases (GHG) that accelerate global heating.
Verified measurements from the European Union's Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service indicate that the fires have belched an estimated 106 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere. This single, seasonal pulse equals the combined annual CO2 output of roughly 103 coal-fired power plants running at full capacity.
This immense emissions surge threatens to derail Indonesia, which consistently ranks among the world’s top GHG emitters, from achieving crucial targets in its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) per the 2015 Paris Agreement.
In its second NDC, submitted last year, the country pledged to transform its Forestry and Other Land Use (FOLU) sector into a net carbon sink by 2030, an ambitious benchmark requiring natural carbon sequestration to consistently outstrip gross sector emissions.
Observers are skeptical about the target, given the immense swaths of land still burning. They have been quick to point to the government for failing to prevent resource-based businesses from expanding plantations by degrading and burning forests and peatlands, two ecosystems that store CO2, preventing its release into the atmosphere.
Indonesia’s recurring fire crisis deals another severe blow to the international effort to cap average global surface warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, the vital safety threshold codified in the Paris Agreement to avoid the worst calamities due to climate change.
The government is running out of credible excuses to justify its protracted inaction on comprehensive climate mitigation and adaptation. Almost predictably, officials issue public declarations each year ahead of the United Nations climate conference, insisting that emission reductions must remain contingent upon international climate finance from the Global North, citing the historical emissions debt owed by industrialised powers.
But we live on the same planet, which is getting hotter due to emissions caused by human activities regardless of where people live. With millions living without strong social protection against natural hazards, the climate crisis will only transform into a social disaster that threatens their lives even more.
Indonesia’s political and corporate elites often advance the familiar, outdated defence that socioeconomic development for more than 280 million citizens cannot be sacrificed on the altar of climate ambition. This argument has been debunked by many economists and climate scientists.
Being a developing economy does not absolve the country of its climate responsibilities. As efforts continue to contain numerous fire fronts, the primary operational imperative is complete suppression before transboundary haze inflicts more damage to public health and economies across the region.
In the meantime, the government should work seriously on policies to prevent such large-scale wildfires from igniting in the future.
Among possible actions is uncompromised criminal prosecution of major commodity concessionaires that expand their businesses by harming the environment. The government should also double efforts to restore degraded forests and peatlands to make them more resistant to deliberate burning.
Without decisive action, Indonesia will continue to rank among the world’s worst carbon emitters and lose credibility for its inability to keep its climate promises. - The Jakarta Post/ANN
