Jakarta’s uncertain future: finding solutions to climate change and its unequal social consequences in Indonesia’s capital
Over the last decades, Jakarta’s population has massively expanded, and the city now hosts over 10 million inhabitants and has become Indonesia’s commercial and economic centre as the city with the second highest GDP in ASEAN after Singapore (Baswedan, 2019). As Jakarta has grown however, the impact on surrounding ecosystems has proven disastrous, with grave consequences for the city’s future.
Due to the lack of urban infrastructure to accommodate the hundreds of thousands commuters that move to the city every year, Jakarta has struggled particularly with traffic induced pollution posing grave health risks (Baswedan, 2019). Simultaneously, a lack of water availability has forced 60% of locals to rely on groundwater as their primary drinking source (Kimmelman, 2017). This has eroded the bedrock under the city, causing it to sink at rapid rates. Paired with the rising sea levels resulting from global warming, Jakarta’s future is increasingly uncertain, and it is estimated that by 2040, 30% of the city might already be submerged. The poorer rural migrants who have moved to the capital in recent decades will suffer most severely as a result, as the lack of official housing has forced many to construct their own shelters and homes in areas most prone to flooding and natural disasters (Kimmelman, 2017).
As a result the Indonesian government has started looking for solutions to this crisis, though to little success. In 2019 Indonesia’s president Joko Widodo therefore announced plans to build a new capital, Nusantara, in East Kalimantan on Borneo Island (Henschke & Utama, 2020). It is hoped by moving Indonesia’s political and financial centre out of Java, Jakarta’s unsustainable population size will be resolved while the economic impacts of future floods will be minimised. However, as I will demonstrate, these plans will only worsen Jakarta’s situation as the poorer migrants who are most susceptible to the disastrous impacts of climate change will be left behind. Nusantra meanwhile will do little to resolve ecological destruction in Indonesia as its construction will damage Borneo’s rainforests, increase pollution, and exacerbate social inequalities. As Jakarta faces an uncertain future due to climate change, the current solutions proposed by the Indonesian government would only worsen Jakarta’s crisis.
The sinking city: the current impacts of climate change on social inequality and economic uncertainty in Jakarta
Before it is possible to more closely evaluate the future of Jakarta however, it is necessary to explore the climate-related issues the city faces and the impacts this has on the local population. As Indonesia’s economic, political, and cultural centre, the city has been plagued by massive infrastructural problems related to urban sprawl, congestion, the construction of informal settlements, flooding, land subsidence, and a lack of water and waste management services (World Bank, 2011). What is particularly problematic about this crisis is the interconnectedness of all these issues: as poorer locals are forced to rely on groundwater to compensate for the lack of water and waste infrastructure, over 8 million cubic metres of groundwater are lost annually, only leaving 36% of Jakarta’s initial groundwater reserves (Renaldi, 2022). This rapid decrease has led to a rapid land subsidence, worsened by the city’s rapid expansion through informal settlements that add further weight, and prevent rainwater from replenishing the ground water (World Bank, 2011). Jakarta’s annual land subsidence is therefore at 15cm, but exceeds 25cm in some areas (Kimmelman, 2017). Coupled with an annual sea level rise of 3.6mm every year, 40% of the city is now below sea level leading to disastrous and increasingly common floods (Praditya, et al., 2023; Lin & Hidayat, 2018).
The resulting flooding has therefore created a negative loop by frequently destroying the city’s existing infrastructure. While currently the average annual damage to Jakarta through flooding totals “only” £147.6 million, by 2030 this number is expected to rise to £413.4 million per year (Nugroho, 2023). While in the past, at least the city’s coastal infrastructure and inhabitants had been protected by mangroves, almost 93% of Jakarta’s initial 291.17 hectares have been cleared for the construction and infrastructure developments accompanying the city’s growth (Aldrian, 2021). Consequently, the city finds itself on the losing side in its struggle with climate change, creating an uncertain outlook for its future as Indonesia’s financial and political centre.
Flooded and now abandoned factories in North Jakarta (Kimmelman, 2017)
It is, however, also notable how those impacted most by climate change are often vulnerable low-income populations, largely composed of recent migrants, who reside in Jakarta’s vast informal settlements. Located primarily along the coast and waterways, these groups are exceptionally susceptible to losing their livelihoods, employment, and homes through floods (World Bank, 2011). While locals have resorted to building their own makeshift flood-defences, the rapid land subsidence has made this an un-ending battle (Henschke & Utama, 2020). This is particularly highlighted by the greater Jakarta floods of 2020 which displaced over 60,000 individuals (John, 2020).
With these terrible impacts of climate change and urban development right now, things will only get worse unless a long-term solution is found. With locals asking “Where else can we go? We don’t have the option of moving”, their increasing desperation and lack of alternatives is particularly poignant (Henschke & Utama, 2020).
Constructing Nusantara: the future social and climate-related outlooks of government plans to abandon Jakarta
While poorer locals are forced to stay, the Indonesian government already has plans to relocate to Nusantara, a new capital in East Kalimantan, further leaving Jakarta in an uncertain position. While Nusantara was announced as a “city in balance with nature” to counteract the climate disaster unfolding in Jakarta, experts warn of the ecological damage this project will create (Ratcliffe, 2022). The choice of the rainforests of Borneo for this vast project will likely only increase the negative impacts of pollution and climate change on Indonesia. Simultaneously, by moving the capital, the unequal social impacts of climate change in Jakarta will only worsen, as only Indonesia’s political elites can find refuge from the sinking capital here.
Despite these largely negative impacts, the Indonesian Government has made repeated promises that Nusantara will provide a viable solution to Jakarta’s and Indonesia’s issues. Most notably, by locating the new capital outside of Java, which is home to 60% of Indonesia’s population and over half of its economic activity, it is hoped people will be attracted to move away from Java to redistribute the nation’s population (Ratcliffe 2022). This would, in theory, allow Jakarta to experience a less rapid growth rate and allow it to overcome the infrastructural and climate-related crisis it currently faces. Nusantara will also act as a potent visual symbol of this climate-friendly regeneration process as 70% of the new city will be covered by parks and natural conservation centres. Furthermore, the capital will contain large pedestrianised areas and will facilitate commuters through a large, and purely electric, public transportation system (Henschke & Utama, 2020). This should vastly reduce the current carbon foot-print as government officials relying on commuting with cars to government offices in Jakarta, a city with virtually no green spaces, will now, at least in appearance, reside in an environmentally-friendly city.
The plan for Nusantara with its green-oriented layout and designs (Henschke & Utama, 2020)
While Nusantara is designed with these ecological considerations in mind, in reality, the new capital will only increase the disastrous impacts of climate change and pollution to Kalimantan, while worsening the social impacts of climate change in Jakarta. While the government has yet to carry out an environmental impact assessment of the project, it has already started construction. Though promises have been made of powering Nusantara purely through green hydropower, experts predict the three hydroelectric power plants planned for East Kalimantan will fall short of providing the necessary energy needed to sustain the new capital (Henschke & Utama, 2020). In fact, the government has already commissioned the construction of over three new coal plants in the area, and over recent years has issued 1434 mining permits in Kalimantan covering an area greater the size of Belgium (Henschke & Utama, 2020). It is therefore increasingly unlikely Nusantara will have the positive ecological and environmental impact the government has outlined in its plans, and will in fact worsen Indonesia’s carbon emissions and increase the already rapid deforestation rates on Borneo to create space for its construction.
In Jakarta the situation will likely not improve either. With the government already currently facing difficulties in financing flood barriers, the new capital’s estimated construction cost at $32 billion will likely further undermine attempts to mitigate the impacts of floods in Jakarta and provide disaster relief to impacted individuals (Christina & Sulaiman, 2023). With the government unable to fund both the protection of Jakarta, and a new capital specifically designed to avoid the urban sprawl associated with Jakarta, only a fraction of the city’s population will be able to relocate to the new capital and avoid Jakarta’s climate crisis. With a majority of Nusantara’s apartments reserved for government officials and business leaders, it is clear that Jakarta’s urban-poor will be fundamentally excluded from this utopia of greenery and safety. Without government support these already disproportionately affected groups will largely be abandoned by the government and bear the brunt of climate related disasters.
The current solutions pursued by the Indonesian government to resolve Jakarta’s uncertain future will only therefore consolidate the city’s track to a more unequal and destructive future. While Indonesia’s political and financial elites may be able to simply relocate, the impact of climate change on the city’s majority of urban-poor inhabitants would likely be catastrophic.
A future of uncertainty or hope – alternative solutions to mitigate climate-related disasters and social inequality in the future
With the expansion of problems for Jakarta created by relocating the capital to Nusantara, it is necessary to explore alternative solutions to help mitigate the disastrous implications the current “solutions” would have. By developing local solutions in a more environmentally conscious and socially-equitable way, the dangers of climate change can be reduced, even if not entirely eliminated. This would however enable Jakarta’s inhabitants to increase their financial security and maintain the city’s status as Indonesia’s cultural and economic centre in the future.
While Jakarta’s city government has proposed alternative solutions by building a “Giant Sea Wall” to double as a water reservoir and block storm surges, beyond the unavailable financial resources needed to fund such a project, land subsidence would likely cause the wall to sink within a few years, negating any progress it could provide (Aldrian, 2021). While this alternative would be unviable, it does indicate the key issues that have to be addressed to save Jakarta. Rather than spending billions of dollars on man-made coastal defences, experts suggest replenishing the mangroves that have been destroyed for urban development over the past decades as explained earlier (Renaldi, 2022). This would mitigate the impacts of floods and storm surges significantly, while also mitigating other forms of pollution by re-greening the city. In terms of greenery too, to prevent the city from sinking further, replenishing the groundwater under the city would be essential (Aldrian, 2021). By designating urban areas as parks, and restoring riverbanks crowded with housing, rainwater would be able to sink into the ground rather than flowing to the sea.
While these measures in themselves would not be enough to completely stop Jakarta from sinking, they are important parts of the solution, and show that there is still hope for the city. While abandoning Jakarta may appear the easiest solution for the Indonesian Government, the catastrophic social and ecological impacts this solution would have should not make it an option. Rather than investing into the construction of Nusantara, directing these large finances to regenerating Jakarta’s greenery and urban landscape would likely come a long way in mitigating the impacts of climate change. While Jakarta’s future may appear increasingly uncertain, there is still hope for its survival.
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