On October 8, 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published a special UN report, warning that the world is running out of time to halt climate change. At the current rate of greenhouse gas emissions, the planet’s global warming can reach 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels as early as 2030.[1] Beyond this threshold, the IPCC also calculated that millions of people will suffer from the devastating effects of extreme drought, wildfires, floods and food shortages.[2] In this report, the IPCC argued that urgently limiting global warming to 1.5°C, rather than the 2°C agreed to in the Paris Agreement, would significantly reduce risks to biodiversity, food security, and sea-level stability. “Only 12 years left” was a predominant media headline generated by the IPCC report, raising awareness that no country or society will be immune to the impacts of climate change and environmental disasters. Hoesung Lee, the Chair of the IPCC, stated at a press conference in Seoul that “every bit of warming matters.”[3] Limiting global warming to the 1.5°C IPCC target is not impossible, but it will require significant social and political will from actors ranging from governments to private individuals. Currently, prospects of climate mitigation look pessimistic, as the world remains off-track to reach the Paris Agreement’s target of 2°C.[4] Despite ongoing global dialogue and initiatives concerning climate change, there is an underlying lack of reluctance to commit to significant change.
A 2012 World Bank report noted the likely effects of a 4°C increase of global temperature: “the distribution of impacts is likely to be inherently unequal and tilted against many of the world’s poorest regions, which have the least economic, institutional, scientific and technical capacity to cope and adapt.”[5] The cruel truth is that the impact of environmental disasters disproportionally affects specific regions and groups of people. The impact of climate change is highly uneven across geographical regions and socio-economic stratas. Two of the biggest climate change threats are rising sea-levels caused by the melting of glaciers, and thermal expansion and extreme weather caused by changing meteorological factors such as temperature and moisture. Low-altitude and coastal cities will suffer the most from exacerbated land erosion, chronic flooding, desertification, disaster damage, and the inundation of infrastructure and human settlements. Therefore, the problem is not only that “every bit of warming matters” – but climate change is not equal for all.
The worldwide alarm rung by the IPCC report rallied media attention around the global emergency of climate change, but with a particular focus on potential future disasters. Most of the world has turned a blind eye to already disaster-burdened regions, notably Southeast Asia. In the week directly preceding the publication of the IPCC report, a tsunami hit Palu, Indonesia on September 28, 2018, causing 2,256 deaths and US$911 million in property damage.[6] However, this incident barely caught the attention of global media. Just weeks before Palu, the provincial capital of Sulawesi was hit by an earthquake-triggered tsunami. Scientists predict that the impacts of tsunamis will worsen in the near future, especially in low-lying areas affected by climate-induced rising sea levels.[7]
The effects of climate change are reshaping the urban and demographic landscapes of especially densely-populated cities around the world.[8] Indonesia, an archipelago of thousands of islands and a country with 50,3000 miles of coastline, is particularly sensitive to rising sea levels.[9] Its capital city Jakarta has the highest rates of land subsidence in the world. In a 2013 flood, 90 percent of the city was affected.[10] In 2017, around 40 percent of Jakarta laid below sea level.[11] Tropical regions that rely on agricultural sectors are also especially sensitive to climate change. In Cambodia, where 70 percent of the population farms to live, higher temperatures have disrupted the water cycle, the monsoon season, and hydrological functions of the interconnected Mekong-Tonle Sap River drainage system.[12]
Geographical and meteorological research has been an important dimension of monitoring and projecting the impacts of climate change. However, since climate change is a consequence of human activities, the distribution and causes of climate change inequalities are not organic or natural. The effects of climate change are exacerbated by policy decisions, entrenched in inequalities between “developed countries,” who have benefited from historical carbon emissions, and “developing countries,” who are tasked today with mitigating the disproportionate harms of climate change. The US’ withdrawal from the Paris Agreement on the grounds of domestic economic concerns cast a shadow over global ambitions to substantially reduce the causes of climate change.
As stated in World Bank reports as early as 2012, the expansion of coastal cities results in a trend where the poorest people reside in areas with the highest risk of flooding, notably in riverbanks or low-lying areas.[13] The Indonesian megacity Jakarta is a typical example of this. Padawangi and Douglass’s paper in 2015 situated flooding in Jakarta in a landscape of social inequality. Problematic land regulation, urban planning, and criminalization of the poor pushed marginalized populations to the edge of the city along the coast of Northern Jakarta and into clusters by the river.[14] Roughly 100,000 people are living next to the seawall by the Java Sea in the north, and below sea level.[15] The lack of institutional capacity and political will to govern peripheral parts of Jakarta magnified the impact of rising sea levels and flooding.
The explosive growth of Jakarta since the 1980s at the rate of one million new migrants every year, combined with the limited area of livable land and increasing population density, means that the impact of “natural” disasters is becoming more severe.[16] The city’s real estate industry enjoys considerable growth, but economic gains come with large and unequal costs to the environment and its victims. Large land development projects are undertaken by private companies, who obtain permission through personal connections with government and private interests.[17] The subsequent lack of regulation has led to a drastic decrease in green areas, which are being converted into paved roads and concrete buildings. Forests have been cleared to make way for housing, industry and business services.[18] With regards to the flooding and urban planning of Jakarta, reports have noted: “many of these buildings have been built on designated water catchment areas, prohibited for development according to spatial planning laws.”[19] Furthermore, water management is also privatized in Indonesia, leaving only a limited number of people with access to piped-in drinking water. In fact, only 35 percent of Jakarta’s water demand is supplied by running tap water.[20] Millions of residents are sustained on underground water, operating through illegal wells that drain underground aquifers.[21]
While no proper dredging or water maintenance measures were implemented by the government for four decades between 1970 and 2010, slum residents were routinely criminalized for the deterioration of urban ecology. They were penalized for disposing of garbage in the river and residing in settlements that obstructed waterways.[22] The government has also used the problem of flooding to justify evictions of slum residents and relocation of households to new subsidized apartments. However, as soon as slums are demolished in the name of flood management, cleared lands are transformed into high-end residential and shopping complexes.[23] This practice of urban renewal has made local residents suspicious of the government’s motivations, thus triggering mass resistance to state-endorsed relocations.[24]
In response to the aforementioned governance issues, grassroot efforts against climate-related evictions have also grown. For example, the residents of Tongkol Kampung have launched local initiatives to transform their communities by cleaning trash in the rivers, setting up garbage bins, cultivating vegetables and herbs, and removing sections of their houses to maintain some distance from the river. Residents hope that these measures will convince the government to halt its coercive evictions.[25] Forced evictions are also linked to issues of land regulation. The government claims ownership over land whenever its current residents cannot present legal documentation and paperwork to prove their ownership, despite records of residency for decades.[26] While state authorities insist on continued evictions and land-grabbing, the government and the residents of informal developments are locked in a stalemate over feasible solutions to issues that are fundamentally rooted in climate change.
The emergency of climate change has magnified the everyday impacts of global warming, and exacerbated the inequalities that are sustained by political trends and policy failures. Many of these tensions have made climate change a developmental problem that affects the livelihoods of millions. Media headlines today do not recognize that the unequal and pervasive impact of climate change is immediate for many in positions of socio-economic marginalization. If actions to reduce climate change still lag behind a 2030 blueprint, the fate of those who are suffering today will be continued in day-to-day catastrophes directly caused by the failure of the international community to act efficiently and effectively.
Jamie Huiyi Chen is a contributor for Synergy: The Journal of Contemporary Asian Studies, East Asia section.
[1] IPCC, Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5ºC, IPCC, October 8, 2018, http://www.ipcc.ch/report/sr15/.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Justin Worland, “Scientists Just Laid Out Paths to Solve Climate Change. We Aren’t on Track to Do Any of Them,” Time, October 8, 2018, http://time.com/5418134/ipcc-climate-change-report-2030-crisis/.
[4] Nina Chestney, Jane Chung, “Rapid, unprecedented change needed to halt global warming – U.N.,” Reuters, October 7, 2018, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climatechange-ipcc/rapid-unprecedented-change-needed-to-halt-global-warming-u-n-idUSKCN1MI022
[5] World Bank, “Turn down the heat : why a 4°C warmer world must be avoided,” November 12, 2012, http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/865571468149107611/pdf/NonAsciiFileName0.pdf
[6] Karina M. Tehusijarana, “Central Sulawesi quake, tsunami inflicted US$911 million in losses: Govt,” The Jarkarta, October 12, 2018, http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2018/10/21/central-sulawesi-quake-tsunami-inflicted-us911-million-in-losses-govt.html.
[7] Stuart Braun, “Climate-induced sea-level rise to worsen tsunami impacts,” DW, October 3, 2018, https://www.dw.com/en/climate-induced-sea-level-rise-to-worsen-tsunami-impacts/a-45730449
[8] Josh Holder, Niko Kommenda and Jonathan Watts, “The three-degree world: the cities that will be drowned by global warming,” The Guardian, November 3, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/cities/ng-interactive/2017/nov/03/three-degree-world-cities-drowned-global-warming.
[9] Zoe Tabary, “In Jakarta, flood-hit slum residents aim for a higher, drier future,” Reuters, December 11, 2017, https://www.reuters.com/article/indonesia-jakarta-floods/feature-in-jakarta-flood-hit-slum-residents-aim-for-a-higher-drier-future-idUSL8N1OB2JU.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Ibid.
[12] UNDP Cambodia, “Reducing the Vulnerability of Cambodian Rural Livelihoods through Enhanced Sub-National Climate Change Planning and Execution of Priority Actions,” http://www.kh.undp.org/content/cambodia/en/home/projects/reducing-the-vulnerability-of-cambodian-rural-livelihoods-throug.html.
[13] World Bank, 2012.
[14] Rita Padawangi and Mike Douglass, “Water, Water Everywhere: Toward Participatory Solutions to Chronic Urban Flooding in Jakarta,” Pacific Affairs, 88 (3). 523-524.
[15] Chris Bentley “Trying to confront a massive flood risk, Jakarta faces ‘problem on top of problem,’” PRI, September 15, 2016, https://www.pri.org/stories/2016-09-15/trying-confront-massive-flood-risk-jakarta-faces-problem-top-problem-0.
[16] Padawangi and Douglass, 521-522.
[17] Ibid., 529.
[18] Ibid., 519.
[19] Sarine Arslanian, “Rethinking Urban Planning in a Changing Climate: Case study on Flood-Prone Jakarta,” New Cities, https://newcities.org/rethinking-urban-planning-in-a-changing-climate-case-study-on-flood-prone-jakarta/.
[20] Devina Heriyanto, “What you need to know about Jakarta’s water privatization,” The Jarkarta Post, April 12, 2018, http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2018/04/12/what-you-need-to-know-about-jakartas-water-privatization.html.
[21] Bill Tarrant, “Special Report: In Jakarta, that sinking feeling is all too real,” Reuters, December 14, 2014, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sealevel-subsidence-jakarta-sr/special-report-in-jakarta-that-sinking-feeling-is-all-too-real-idUSKBN0K016S20141222.
[22] Joe Cochrane, “What’s Clogging Jakarta’s Waterways? You Name It,” New York Times, October 3, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/04/world/asia/jakarta-indonesia-canals.html.
[23] Padawangi and Douglass, 531-532.
[24] Michael Kimmelman, “Jakarta Is Sinking So Fast, It Could End Up Underwater,” New York Times, December 21, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/21/world/asia/jakarta-sinking-climate.html.
[25] Megan Sutherland, “Community in chaotic Jakarta goes green to fight eviction,” Phys.org, March 20, 2017, https://phys.org/news/2017-03-chaotic-jakarta-green-eviction.html.
[26] Ibid.
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