Climate Resilient and Inclusive Cities (CRIC) amplified the voices of local governments by showcasing the climate ambition and actions of Pekanbaru and Mataram in the "Local Authorities as Climate Champions" session at EU-Indonesia Climate Diplomacy Week on Thursday, 14 October 2021.
CRIC collaborated with GCOM SEA and IURC, two other EU-funded programmes coordinated by the UCLG ASPAC, to manage the event, attracting at least 130 participants. This virtual event is part of EU-Indonesia Climate Diplomacy Week 2021 that brought up the theme "Ambition and Action".
M. Henriette Faergemann, the Environment, Climate Action and ICT First Counsellor - EU Delegation to Indonesia, opened the session with an uplifting note. "Local governments are climate champions to lead climate actions in cities, thereby contributing to the Paris Agreement," she said on Thursday (15/10).
The statement rings true as Ms Faergemann said –referring to the UN-Habitat report- that cities consume more than 70% of the world's energy and produce more than 60% of greenhouse gas emissions while occupying just 2% of its land. Through the CRIC Project, she added, European Union supports climate action to build a resilient and inclusive future through "dissemination of best practice, knowledge and fostering a long-lasting partnership."
In light of this, CRIC's pilot cities play a role in contributing to Indonesia's global commitment to reduce GHG, in line with its Nationally Determined Contributions, through climate change mitigation and adaptation measures.
Ambition and action
Representing Pekanbaru, Vice Mayor Ayat Cahyadi presented the City's strategies and actions to tackle climate change through waste management initiatives. Underlining the tagline "my waste is my responsibility, your waste is your responsibility", the Vice Mayor said that the City encourages community participation in the waste management effort.
Pekanbaru has rolled out several waste management initiatives, one of which is Waste Bank aiming to educate local communities on sustainable waste management practices starting from the household level.
Another CRIC's pilot cities, Mataram, also face a waste problem where the City produces almost 70% of organic waste each day. The final disposal site lies 18 kilometres from the city centre and will be in full capacity in 2-3 years.
Speaking on behalf of the City, the First Assistant of Regional Secretary Lalu Martawang, said that the waste transportation cost would place enormous pressure on the local budget. "Imagine that we have to allocate 40 billion for waste management and 32 billion for street lighting. If we can convert waste to bioenergy, we can tackle both waste and energy issues," he said.
Apart from CRIC's pilot cities, the other four cities of Semarang, Bandung, Palembang and Malang also shared their actions to pave a sustainable future. Semarang presented the initiative to build Bus Rapid Transit, Bandung on sustainable food system; Palembang on energy efficiency; while Malang showcased a wide array of adaptation actions, one of which is waste management.
Mounting support: policy, tool, capacity and network
The case of each City demonstrates local leadership and commitment to sparking climate action. Ms Ratnasari Wargahadibrata from the Indonesia Ministry of Environment and Forestry's (MoEF) Directorate General of GHG Inventory, Calculation, Monitoring and Verification shared that the national government supports city climate actions through tools, capacity building, and policy through MoEF.
"We have SIGN SMART to help cities calculate and report their greenhouse gas emissions; we also have National Registry System to collect data and information on completed mitigation and adaptation actions. We develop these to identify the need of each stakeholder, whether it regards to capacity, technical assistance or technology," she said.
The event also invited Ms Rima Yuliantari from the Ministry of Home Affairs' Regional Government Directorate General, stressing the importance of multi-stakeholder partnership involving local governments, private sectors, civil societies and local communities. "Local governments can not rely only on the local budget to manifest some of the action that requires financing. The key lies in innovation and exploring financing alternatives," she added.
Closing off the event, UCLG ASPAC Secretary-General Dr Bernadia Irawati Tjandradewi further echoed the importance of cross-sectoral collaboration and innovation. "It is vital to have an enabling environment -through policies and regulation and integrated reporting mechanism - to support local governments in integrating its climate resilience issue in the planning documents such as Regional Mid-Term Development Planning. We need to collaborate, innovate and work collectively to tackle the climate crisis," she said.
CRIC continues supporting its ten pilot cities to spark climate actions through Climate Action Plan training from 2021 to 2022. Learn more about our Climate Action Plan training here: https://youtu.be/n8eawoa2FMw
