Global Warming

Global warming also has the potential to put Indonesia's densely populated coastal areas underwater. On the situation in Indonesia, Sari said, more than 70 percent of the world's population lives in coastal areas and Indonesia is no exception. There will be serious problems for millions of people, due to the dislocation of human settlements and infrastructure, if ocean levels increase by 50 centimeters over the next 50 years.

Indonesia -- Malaria spreads to high elevations. Malaria was detected for the first time as high as 6,900 feet (2103 m) in the highlands of Irian Jaya in 1997

Indonesia -- Burning rainforest, 1998. Fires burned up to 2 million acres (809,371 hectares) of land, including almost 250,000 acres (101,172 hectares) of primary forest and parts of the already severely reduced habitat of the Kalimantan orangutan.

Indonesia is especially vulnerable to the impact of climate change as global warming threatens to raise sea levels and flood coastal farming areas, threatening food security, a report sponsored by the World Bank and Britain's Department for International Development said.
Recent flooding in Jakarta may be partially attributed to global warming. The flooding, over 20 ft deep in places and reaching 1.6km inland was also due to a tidal surge compounded by bad drainage and flood prevention systems. Each rainy season Jakarta floods, the western part of Indonesia receiving more rain than centrally located Bali. Flights from Sukarno-Hatta international airport were also disrupted.
Indonesia’s farming and fishing industry, although extremely localized will also be affected by climatic changes, with some parts of the country struggling for water during the dry season. Bali has 4 highland lakes that feed rivers year round. Its intricate and highly organized subak watercourse management society as valuable today as its ever been.
The report, released today, said global warming could increase temperatures, shorten the rainy season and intensify rainfall, leading to a significant fall in rice yields.
It said thousands of farmers in productive coastal areas would also have to look for other livelihoods if predictions of a rise in sea levels came true across the vast archipelago nation.
'Indonesia is vulnerable to the impact of climate change including prolonged droughts and floods raising serious food security and health threats while endangering the habitats and livelihoods of coastal communities,' the report issued ahead of World Environment Day on Tuesday said.
Environment Minister Rachmat Witoelar warned in January Indonesia could lose 2,000 small islands by 2030 due to a rise in sea levels as a result of climate change.
The report also stressed that deforestation, degradation of peat land and forest fires had placed Indonesia among the world's top emitters of greenhouse gases.
Deforestation and land conversion, mostly by fires, accounted for 75 pct of carbon dioxide emissions in the Indonesian forestry sector, it said.
Rising temperatures due to global warming would further dry up the rainforest and peat swamps, increasing the risk of even more intense fires, the report said.
The government has outlawed land-clearing by fire, but weak enforcement means the ban is largely ignored.
Indonesia will host the UN climate change convention on the resort island of Bali later this year.
Jakarta signed the Kyoto Protocol on fighting climate change in 1998 and ratified it in 2004
The motive is good: To reduce its carbon footprint, the European Union wants 5.75 percent of its nations' vehicles to run on biofuel by 2010. The result in Indonesia, however, has been an unprecedented acceleration of deforestation to create plantations for palm oil – one type of biofuel – to serve Europe.
The impact is twofold. First, the pace of deforestation has made Indonesia the third-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, behind only the United States and China, in part because of fires lit by some Indonesians to clear land. As a result, an area that covers 0.1 percent of Earth's landmass accounts for 4 percent of global emissions, according to Greenpeace.
Second, Indonesia's indigenous people rely on the forests for their livelihood. As the deforestation accelerates in already volatile regions like Papua and West Kalimantan, tensions are also mounting.
"In the near future there is the possibility of conflict between the community and the companies," says Bustar Maitar of Greenpeace, who has lived among villagers on the island of Sumatra. "The community will want to defend their land."
Conflicts could be an unintended effect of a biofuel program, agrees Geoffrey Dabelko, director of the Environmental Change and Security Project in Washington.