The year 2023 was recorded as the hottest year of the entire recorded period, that is, for the past 174 years. In 2023, the global average temperature will be 1.45 degrees Celsius higher than pre-industrial temperatures.
The sea level has reached its highest average altitude since 1993.
However, what is the significance of all this data at the grassroots level, such as in villages in Indonesia? This is what a group of researchers from Indonesia and Australia are currently investigating.
Under the Cooperation Platform titled Connections, a number of researchers from various institutions, including Murdoch University in Australia and Satya Wacana University and Rujak Centre for Urban Studies from Indonesia, took to the field to find out what impact people are experiencing in various areas of Indonesia, such as the Penarea in North Jakarta.
According to Dian Tri Irawaty, Rujak Program Director, people in Penare feeling first-hand the effects of climate change through various changes in their lives, from the loss of places of hospitality to the threat of the salted fish industry.
“It used to be that the coast is still visible.. it used to be able to walk on the beach, but now it has been eroded. Where is the beach? On the coast of Cilincing, Kalibaru, back in 1970, people could still date there,” Dian said.
Flooded road. Photo by Dibakar Roy on Unsplash
Fishermen, for example, can no longer rely on consistent forecasts of the western season and the eastern season, because the weather is now more difficult to predict, not just rain for a few months then dry in later months.
“We learn for example that there is a salting business. It used to be for salting the process of drying fish... When it was raining, hot, raining, hot, they could not produce a certain amount for fear of spoilage, rot, not selling,” Dian continued.
Take a walk a few distance from your next resort, here is what the beaches of the world really look like these days. Photo by Dustan Woodhouse on Unsplash
Dr. Wilson said that as he talked with residents in Pen, some claimed that it is more easy to experience stress due to the hotter air year after year.
One of the aims of the project is to advance Indonesia's interests around compensation for losses caused by Climate Change at the international level, through the Warsaw International Mechanism on Loss and Damage.
However, according to Dian as Director of the Rujak Program, currently the focus of the project's activities is more focused on government agencies in Indonesia, because if compensation funds will be provided to Indonesia, it is more likely that the funds will be used for government programs to mitigate the effects of climate change, and not directly channeled to the community.
What we want that intervention is actually what form of policy is important presentDr Ian Wilson from the Indo-Pacific Research Centre, Murdoch University.
“My biggest concern is that if we can claim this loss and damage mechanism... we continue to get X amount... if the government considers it to be for government programs and their glasses are still the glasses they are now, for example, building levees but displacing them, I don't guarantee that people will have a better quality of life, even though compensation has already been provided.”
In addition to Pen, the research sites also include Pari Island in the Thousand Islands, and the Magelang area, Central Java.
