Green Assembly Asia Environment:Climate Change

 

INDONESIA (Southeast Asia)
CO2 Emissions p.capita (tonnes) UN	World Ranking CO2 Emissions (p.capita) UN	EPI World Ranking  Climate Change	TI World Ranking Corruption	TI Asia Ranking Corruption	Ratified Kyoto Protocol (year)
1.69	86	120	126	17	2004

Compiled by Green Assembly. Data sourced from the UN,Transparency International,and EPI

THE Republic of Indonesia in Southeast Asia comprises 17,508 islands. With a population of 222 million it is the world’s fourth most populous country and the most populous Muslim-majority nation, although no reference is made to Islam in the Indonesian constitution.

Indonesia has an elected parliament and president, and the capital city is Jakarta.

The country is currently emitting a misleadingly low amount of CO2 per capita but is in fact the third largest producer of CO2 in the world, exceeded only by the USA and China.

Indonesia is engaged in the biggest exercise in deforestation in the history of mankind. The appallingly corrupt government continues to turn a blind eye to blatant illegal logging, and palm-oil cultivation, aided and abetted by equally corrupt dealers and retailers in China, Australia, Europe and the USA.

The country shares borders with Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste and Malaysia. Other neighbouring countries include Singapore, the Philippines and Australia.

Provinces and Administrative Divisions
Indonesia consists of 33 provinces each of which has its own political legislature and governor and is subdivided into regencies and cities, which are the key administrative units.

Aceh, Jakarta, Yogyakarta, Papua, and West Papua province have greater legislative privileges and a higher degree of autonomy from the central government than the other provinces.

Other major provinces include: Sumatra, North Sumatra, West Sumatra, Riau, Riau Islands, Jambi, South Sumatra, Bangka, Bengkulu, Lampung, Java, Banten. West Java, Central Java, East Java, Surabaya, Lesser Sunda Islands, Bali, West Nusa Tenggara, Mataram, and East Nusa Tenggara.

Geography
Indonesia consists of 17,508 islands but only 6,000 are inhabited. The five largest are Java, Sumatra, Kalimantan (the Indonesian part of Borneo), New Guinea (shared with Papua New Guinea), and Sulawesi.

Indonesia shares land borders with Malaysia on the islands of Borneo and Sebatik, Papua New Guinea on the island of New Guinea, and East Timor on the island of Timor. Indonesia also shares borders with Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines to the north and Australia to the south.

The capital, Jakarta, is on Java and is the nation’s largest city, followed by Surabaya, Bandung, Medan, and Semarang.

One of the country’s main ports for shipping palm oil to Europe is Dumai (Sumatra).

Ecology
Indonesia’s high population and rapid industrialization present serious environmental issues, which are often given lower priority due to high poverty levels and weak, under-resourced governance.

Issues include large-scale illegal deforestation and related wildfires causing massive emissions of CO2 and heavy smog over parts of western Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and even as far as southern Thailand.

Habitat destruction threatens the survival of indigenous and endemic species, including 140 species of mammals identified by the World Conservation Union (IUCN) as threatened, and 15 identified as critically endangered, including the Sumatran Orangutan. Forests cover approximately 60 percent of the country.

Economy
Indonesia’s main trading partners are Japan, the United States, China, Europe and Singapore. The country has extensive natural resources, including crude oil, natural gas, tin, copper and coal.

Indonesia is Southeast Asia’s only member of OPEC, and the oil price hikes of 2008 provided an export revenue windfall, but political instability since 1998, slow economic reform, and corruption at all levels of government and business, have hampered growth.

Transparency International ranked Indonesia 143rd out of 180 countries in its 2007 Corruption Index.

Logging and the wholesale destruction of rainforest for the cultivation of oil palm are endemic. Indonesia’s contribution to global warming and climate change is astronomical, and is growing. Indonesia proudly claims to be the world’s largest producer of palm oil, harvesting 17.2 million tonnes in 2007. The industry occupies about 6.7 million hectares of land across the country.

Anyone thinking about visiting this country as a tourist might wish to bear in mind that most of the country’s assets remain in the hands of a small group, many of whom have benefited from illegal logging, deforestation and oil-palm cultivation.

Many of them have invested the proceeds from logging and oil palm cultivation in tourist hotels, restaurant chains, airlines and other commercial enterprises used by visitors.