Cities have recognized many actions that could increase climate resilience. Mainstreaming actions on climate resilience will becoming cities' priorities in the future. These statements came from Basuni, representative of Samarinda climate change working group from the city’s environment office during Online Dialogue Forum between CRIC Pilot Cities and Partners, in Thursday, 7 July 2022.
According to Basuni, local government organizations have performed many actions that could be identified as climate actions in mitigation and adaptation to increase resilience in City of Samarinda. In agriculture, city has encouraged members of communities to perform family/home farming where communities plant fruits, vegetables or other plants to intensify their front yards or backyards as sources of food and incomes. City has also encouraged farmers and communities to use organic fertilizers to reduce dependency from chemical fertilizers.
City has implemented flood control and management strategy by closing or opening the water channels in Mahakam River and initiated Kampung Iklim or Climate Village, a national programme in climate mitigation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and climate adaptation in sub-district areas.
Flooding is also a common problem in Banjarmasin, which is also CRIC Pilot City, as the city has experienced extreme weathers due to the climate changes. Ain Roselly Syahsalina, member of climate change working group and staff from the city's development planning agency mentioned that there are seven sub-districts (kelurahan) in Banjarmasin that are prone to flooding.
From the initial climate analysis report produced by the city with help from CRIC trainings, the city is expecting increasing rain intensities in the future between 2021-2050. There were more than 100.000 people being evacuated in January 2021 when the city experienced extreme rainfalls for seven days in a row between 14-20 January 2021. The city's drainage networks could not handle the floods and water intensities from these extreme raining. The city also involved in National Urban Flood Resilience project funded by The World Bank and coordinated by Ministry of Public Works and Housings.
Responding to Basuni's remarks from Samarinda, Roselly from City of Banjarmasin has identified many programmes in the city that increase city resilience to climate changes. The city's strategies are by tagging climate adaptation and mitigation activities and integrating climate action plan into city's development plans.
The city's climate actions include increasing waste management and sanitation, river normalisation and environment restoration. The city had also initiated river cleaning competitions in 75 rivers since 2017 and involved in climate village programmes in coordination with national government.
Pascaline Gaborit, Founder of Pilot4Dev, one of CRIC International Partners mentioned that there should be an integrated planning to reduce flooding risks. Cities should also update their climate data continuously as they are experiencing more flooding thus facing more risks in the future. Danko Aleksic from ACR+, one of CRIC International Partners mentioned that he was hoping to visit the two cities in near future and could develop tools for City of Banjarmasin and Samarinda to help solve issues in water and sanitation and waste management.
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Contributors: Aniessa Delima Sari (UCLG ASPAC Regional Project Manager), Abimanyu Arya (CRIC Project Internship), Aditya Pratama Nugraha Akbar (CRIC Project Internship)
