Jakarta (Greeners) – Increasing population in cities have presented new challenges for its people. Urbanization and climate change have become interconnected more than ever.
Executive director of Institute for Essential Services Reform (IESR), Fabby Tumiwa, said that climate change finance for cities, specifically in Kupang city, revealed that coastal cities were vulnerable to impacts of climate change.
The vulnerability, said Tumiwa, was caused by rising sea level and wind intensity followed by uncertain rain season and dry season.
He said that these conditions have provided risks on ecosystem damages, physical and infrastructure loss in coastal area but also prone to diseases and rising death rate.
“Population growth and economic activities in Kupang city have driven rising greenhouse gas emissions, especially from transportation sector and fuel consumption. It is also caused by waste management with open dumping system,” he said in Jakarta, on Monday (24/10).
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Henriette Imelda, researcher of IESR, said that Kupang had contributed greenhouse as emissions from energy use of transportation and electricity and waste.
Energy consumption in the city, Imelda said, was derived from fossil fuel power plants which increasing every year. Electricity demand reaches 55 MW for Kupang.
“For domestic waste, it reaches 382 m3 per day but only 268 m3 per day goes to landfill,” she said.
Furthermore, she said that adaptation and mitigation actions can be done in the city to tackle climate change impacts.
On mitigation, government, private sectors and civil societies, can use energy friendly biomass stoves, biogas digester to replace kerosene, waste management through Reduce-Reuse-Recycle and waste bank, to monitoring air quality from vehicles.
Meanwhile, on adaptation, urban farming and composting at households, floods and landslides prevention, mapping out vulnerable areas and fire contingency plan.
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From the research, she said that Kupang city can become a case study and lesson learned for other cities in Indonesia that climate change in coastal areas were real.
Consequently, local government needs to work with other stakeholders to prepare innovative working program with measured actions for the cities to deal with climate change impacts.
The study on climate change fund in Kupang is part of studies dubbed as Exploring Innovative Ways of Financing for Climate Compatible in Asian Cities, supported by Germanwatch and conducted in three cities in three nations, — India, Philippines, and Indonesia –.
Reports by Danny Kosasih
21 Apr 2024 
