Our planet is facing triple planetary crises in the midst of COVID-19 pandemic and geopolitical instability. These crises hold back SDGs achievements around the world. The triple planetary crises are; climate change, pollution and biodiversity losses.
The life-threatening situation, climate change will affect 50-75% of global population at the end of this century. Pollution, especially air pollution kills more than 4.2 million people around the world; and biodiversity losses where more than 1 million species are now facing extinction.
These warnings were conveyed by Suharso Monoarfa, Minister for National Development Planning, Head of Indonesia’s National Planning Agency (Bappenas) on his opening remarks of SDGs Annual Conference (SAC) 2022: Leveraging Real Actions in Green Economy to Achieve SDGs, Thursday, 1 December 2022.
Putting in Indonesian context, Suharso said that climate change had already increased extreme hydrometeorological events in Indonesia between 2011 and 2021. “There were 5.402 disaster events in 2021 alone and 99% were hydrometeorological,” he said.
Bappenas has calculated the potential economic losses from climate change between 2020-2024 that could reach Rp 544 trillion if there are no further actions (business as usual) to mitigate and adapt to this climate crisis. “Indonesia could avoid Rp281.9 trillion potential economic losses in 2024 by adopting policy to increase climate resilience,” Suharso said.
According to Article 3.4 UNFCCC, integration of low carbon and climate resilient economic development has become the backbone of green economy implementation. Suharso mentioned that Indonesia has committed further by mixing the green economy concepts into its middle term development plan (RPJMN) 2020-2024.
Indonesia will gain abundant potential benefits by putting the green economy into work. Research by Bappenas has found that Indonesia could reduce 87-96 billion CO2eq emissions from 2021-2060 at the same time grow its GDP by 6.1-6.5% annually by implementing green economy. “Indonesia will also create 1.8 million new green jobs by 2030 in energy sector and other sectors like electric vehicle, land restoration and waste,” Suharso said. All of these efforts implementing green economy according to Suharso will also beneficial in achieving SDGs in Indonesia.
Joko Widodo, President of Republic of Indonesia has strong message towards Indonesia’s SDGs by saying that Indonesia’s target in achieving SDGs should be met in 2030 despite COVID-19 pandemic. “Real actions in implementing SDGs and collaboration between stakeholders are needed to accelerate SDGs achievements,” said Jokowi.
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