Drought and Climate Disaster: Measuring Climate Adaptation and Resilience in Indonesia

By: Ari Mochamad and Doddy S Sukadri 

Breaking news on the drought disaster that hit many regions in Indonesia has been spreading over the nation. This year, Indonesia is truly faced with a clean water crisis and a forest fire disaster, which is mainly driven by the drought disaster. The Indonesia Ministry of Environment and Forestry predicted that the end of September 2023 would be the peak of forest and land fires. 

Droughts, floods, and soil erosion are disasters that are largely caused by climate change. It is important to note that climate change is caused by global warming, and not the other way around. According to the 2022 UNEP report, almost half of all disasters that occur on earth are climate disasters. 

According to the National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB), there have been 1,675 hydrometeorological disasters occurring from January 1 to May 31, 2023. Of this number, more than 90% are wet hydrometeorological disasters, and around 7% are dry hydrometeorological disasters. 

Understanding the Climate Disaster 

What we need to understand from the outset is that climate change is permanent in nature and it is an irrecoverable matter. Once it is happened, no single action can be taken to recover the situation, and back to normal condition. As such, mitigation and adaptation actions are limited to controlling the increasing concentration of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the atmosphere and reducing the negative impacts of climate change. Ambitious mitigation actions pointed out in the Paris Agreement are required to slow down the increasing rate of global warming; while adaptation action is needed to reduce the negative impacts of climate change and increase environmental, social, and economic resilience. 

According to the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES), climate resilience is the ability to anticipate, prepare for, and respond to dangerous events, trends, or climate-related disruptions. Increasing climate resilience requires innovation or ways in which climate change can create new discoveries, reduce climate-related risks, and take steps to better address these risks. 

Threats and Risks 

As the largest archipelagic country in the world, Indonesia is very much prone to environmental degradation. Sea-level rise due to global warming will be the biggest threat in the years to come. Unfortunately, insufficient measures have been taken by all. This vulnerability is exacerbated by misuse of spatial planning and weak coordination between government institutions so that programs and activities do not synergize with each other. On the other hand, limited funding, technology, and institutional capacity as well as human resources are considered inadequate. With these conditions, it is not surprising that when experiencing extreme climates such as droughts, floods, and landslides, it is easy to cause disasters that result in losses for humans and the environment. 

If there are no significant improvements to land and environmental management and development patterns, the impacts of climate change will get worse. Climate disasters that cause social and economic harm to society will continue to increase so that regional and national development targets will not be achieved. A review of the economics of climate change states that climate change is a major obstacle in efforts to reduce poverty. 

This condition is a critical point because in fact the institution or organization carrying out adaptation activities stops at only one or two stages. There are many reasons why this condition occurs, one of which is because the activities carried out prioritize quantity rather than quality. Besides that, funding and time limitations; or because the targets of the adaptation activities that a program wants to achieve are unclear. 

If there are no changes to the current development approach and patterns, it is certain that the loss figures will be even greater. One study shows that if a new intervention is carried out, with an approach that takes into account the threat of climate change in it, it will be able to greatly reduce the losses it causes when a disaster occurs due to spatial planning, infrastructure, types of plant varieties, including changes in community behavior to behavior that is more supportive of its realization. resilience of a region. 

Strategic Steps 

Climate change adaptation is seen as an important option in overcoming the impacts of climate change. For almost a decade, the Indonesian government has prepared strategic steps so that Indonesia has better adaptive capacity. Various vulnerability studies as a scientific basis for a region/region are used to develop and select adaptation actions that are appropriate to the magnitude of the risks of climate change. However, until now an adaptation cycle has not been found, either at the national or regional level, starting from the identification and assessment of vulnerabilities, selection of adaptation actions, and project implementation which include structural and non-structural activities that need to be done. The adaptation process is an iterative process, which never ends, so that the results of monitoring and evaluation become the rationale for assessing vulnerability which is followed by planning activities and so on. 

So, what must be done in the short term? There is a mapping of policy issues, funding, technology, and infrastructure requirements. Vulnerability studies need to be carried out for climate change adaptation which is urgently needed. Integration of adaptation and disaster risk reduction policy strategies and adaptation techniques required by various sectors is a short-term strategic goal. 

Adaptation options are a necessity to fill the gap in identifying the adaptation strategies needed to avoid adaptation malpractices. On the other hand, assessing adaptation options will specifically answer the adaptation needs that must be carried out. Adaptation options should also consider the funding aspect. In addition, it is important to provide the structure of the most real funding mechanism to be offered by public and private financial institutions. 

If this is done in a planned and systematic manner, it will be the right answer to concrete activities to translate commitment to climate change solutions, especially in developing adaptation strategies and actions. However, activeness and involvement in international talks and negotiations for climate change and disaster risk reduction remain good media or tools to achieve the bigger goal of filling the need for domestic climate change action in order to realize regional resilience from climate disasters. 

Finally, if there are no significant improvements to land and environmental management as well as development patterns, climate change will still have potential disasters that will be detrimental to the environment, society, and economy. 

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