Indonesia may miss climate target due to wildfire emissions

JAKARTA — The ongoing burning of forest and peatland has put Indonesia on the brink of missing its national climate target as emissions from wildfires reach record highs, prompting calls for the government to launch aggressive climate mitigation measures.

Large swaths of Kalimantan, Sumatra and Papua have been ravaged by fires since the beginning of this year. By late August, total burned land reached nearly 900,000 hectares, according to independent forest monitoring platform Nusantara Atlas.

In addition to toxic haze that reached as far as the Philippines, the wildfire has also released greenhouse gas emissions that may exacerbate global heating.

As of Sept 11, Indonesia's annual fire emissions reached 76.2 megatons of carbon, around one-third of the global total, according to data from Europe-based Earth observation platform Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service, or CAMS.

This level of emissions is equivalent to what is released by nearly 74 coal-fired power plants in a year.

Indonesia is among the world's top greenhouse gas emitting countries, with a major share of emissions coming from the forest and other landuse, or FOLU, sector, including peatland fires.

The warming El Nino phenomenon over the Pacific Ocean has supercharged the burning of forest and peatland in Indonesia.

Such a pattern was also observed during the El Nino in 2015 and 2019, when official data recorded Indonesia losing 2.6 million and 1.6 million hectares of land respectively.

Staying below the level of 2019 greenhouse gas emissions is critical for Indonesia, as the year was designated as a baseline in its second nationally determined contribution document.

The climate pledge document submitted to the United Nations outlines, among other things, the country's target to reach FOLU "net sink" by 2030, a condition where greenhouse gas absorption in the forestry sector exceeds what is emitted.

Fresh doubts

But the widespread wildfires across the country have raised fresh doubts over whether the target can be reached.

Greenpeace Indonesia senior researcher Sapta Ananda called the net sink target "impossible to reach" without concrete actions to cure the major emission driver in the forestry sector: damaged peatland ecosystems.

Large-scale deforestation to convert peatland for business activities, such as oil palm and monoculture pulpwood plantations, has long contributed to the decomposition of the water-rich landscapes.

Even without burning, Sapta said on Sept 12 that degraded peatland is already emitting significant amounts of carbon: "Peatland fires merely accelerate emissions from these damaged peats."

Environmental group Indonesian Forum for Environment, or WALHI, has monitored thousands of fire hot spots inside business concessions within peatland ecosystems, raising calls for the government to stop authorizing the conversion of such ecosystems.

"As long as forests and peatlands continue to burn … and these sources of emissions are not stopped, the commitment to reach FOLU net sink in 2030 is questionable," WALHI campaigner Uli Arta Siagian said.

THE JAKARTA POST, INDONESIA