May. 03, 2019 04:44PM EST
Indonesia's president elect
announced plans this week to move the country's capital away from Jakarta,
reportedly the fastest sinking city in the world.
A 2018 report said that Jakarta, located on the island of
Java, was one of the global cities most vulnerable to sea level rise caused
by climate
change. It is sinking at a rate of approximately 10 inches per year due to
a combination of the drilling of wells for groundwater and the weight of its
buildings. The 40 to 50 centimeters (approximately 16 to 20 inches) of sea
level rise expected by 2100 even if warming is limited to 1.5 to 2 degrees
Celsius would only make the situation worse.
"In Java, the population
is 57 percent of the total for Indonesia, or more than 140 million people, to
the point that the ability to support this, whether in terms of the
environment, water or traffic in the future, will no longer be possible so I
decided to move outside Java," Indonesian President President Joko Widodo
told local media, as The Financial Times reported.
Jakarta's sinking isn't a
problem for the end of the century. Heri Andreas of the Bandung Institute of
Technology found that 95 percent of North Jakarta could be underwater by
2050, BBC News reported. Jakarta also experiences serious flooding once
a decade and is so congested that its traffic costs Indonesia $7 billion a
year, according to The Jakarta Globe.
Planning Minister Bambang
Brodjonegoro announced Widodo's decision Monday following a cabinet
meeting, Reuters reported.
"The president chose to
relocate the capital city to outside of Java, an important decision," he
said.
Indonesia held its presidential
elections April 17, and private polls have indicated that Widodo is the winner,
though his opponent Prabowo Subianto has not conceded. The official results
will be announced May 22. During the campaign, Widodo promised to more evenly
distribute economic growth outside Java.
An alternative capital has not
yet been selected, and Widodo asked ministers to come up with alternatives, The
Jakarta Globe reported.
Brodjonegoro said the new
capital would probably be located in the center of the country, to encourage a
sense of fairness and equity, and that it would need to have enough drinking water and
be relatively safe from natural
disasters like earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and flooding.
The frontrunner right now is
Palangkaraya in Kalimantan, the part of Borneo controlled by Indonesia, BBC News
reported. However, one high school student was concerned about what the
move might mean for the region's forest.
"I hope the city will
develop and the education will become as good as in Jakarta. But all the land
and forest that's empty space now will be used. Kalimantan is the lungs of the
world, and I am worried, we will lose the forest we have left," the
student said.
Some Indonesians are skeptical
that the capital will actually be relocated, since such a move has been
discussed off and on since the country gained its independence from the Dutch
in 1945. But Brodjonegoro was optimistic, pointing to other countries that had
achieved similar moves.
"Brazil moved from Rio de
Janeiro to Brasilia near the Amazon, and look at Canberra it's built between
Sydney and Melbourne, and Kazakhstan moved their capital to closer to the
centre of the country and also Myanmar moved to Naypyidaw," he said, as
BBC News reported.
He estimated the process would
take 10 years. Wikodo said the move could cost $33 billion, The Financial Times
reported.
No comments:
Post a Comment