RI scientists beg to differ on global warming

Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

While calls for tougher action on global warming are intensifying, Indonesian officials and scientists differ over whether climate changes have affected the country.
Masnellyarti Hilman -- who headed the Indonesian delegation to the United Nations Climate Change Conference from Nov. 6 to 17 in Nairobi, Kenya -- said global warming was a present reality for many Indonesians.
"Indonesia is already facing the impacts of climate change such as drought, flooding and other weather conditions associated with global warming," she said in her speech at the conference, a copy of which was made available to The Jakarta Post.
Masnellyarti, who is a deputy minister for environmental management at the State Ministry for the Environment, said the higher-than-average temperatures in the capital in the last dry season -- which hit a record high of 36 degrees Celsius in what month? from the previous record highs of 32-34 degrees -- were a strong indicator of global warming.
The ministry has also said the rising sea levels, water shortages and forest fires here are indicators of global warming.
Global warming is a phenomenon in which an increase in the temperatures of the earth's atmosphere and oceans can lead to an increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events including floods, droughts, heat waves, hurricanes and tornadoes.
Climatologists say global warming might be due to increasing levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide.
However, many Indonesian officials and scientists are cautious about suggestions that global warming has caused extreme weather conditions in the country.
"The stated indicators are still qualitative talks. No research has been done here to link freak weather conditions, which only hit certain areas, with climate change," Zadrach L. Dupe, a meteorologist from the Bandung Institute of Technology, told the Post.
He said the higher-than-average temperatures in Jakarta and Bandung, for example, could be caused by many factors, such as changing land use patterns through agriculture and deforestation, and population growth.
"The massive forest fires in Kalimantan and Pekanbaru might be contributing to global warming, but there is no evidence to link rising seasonal temperatures in the two cities with climate change."
Pollution levels in Malaysia and Singapore reached levels considered unhealthy on a number of occasions due to smog from fires in Kalimantan and Sumatra.
"Global warming is a complex issue. We need accurate data on temperatures over at least the last 50 years. Unfortunately, Indonesia has no such data," he said.
Sri Loka Prabotosari from the National Space and Aviation Agency (Lapan) said the heat waves in Jakarta and Bandung were not strong evidence of global warming.
"According to our estimations, a 15 percent increase in temperatures over 30 years would indicate that global warming was underway. Therefore, if there is only a small rise in temperatures it can't be categorized as global warming," Sri Loka said as quoted by Antara.
Sri Loka said Lapan had recorded temperatures in Indonesia for the last 100 years, and it was unconvinced that global warming was taking hold.
Ari Muhammad, the World Wide Fund for Nature's climate change coordinator for Indonesia, said there were warning signs of global warming in the country.
"The coral bleaching in Bali and the water shortages across the country are among indicators of global warming," he told the Post.
He expressed concern over the slow progress made at the climate change conference in Kenya.
"Developed countries have yet to show strong commitment to limiting greenhouse gas emissions as agreed in the Kyoto Protocol," he said.
Under the Kyoto Protocol, developed nations must cut greenhouse gas emissions by 8 percent below 1990 levels in the period between 2008 and 2012 in order to control global warming.
Indonesia is not bound by the protocol to any emissions reduction target.