Jakarta’s ‘very bad’ air pollution to persist due to government foot-dragging, green groups say

Name: Indonesian capital Jakarta named world’s most polluted city
Uploaded: 2023-08-24T01:30:10.000Z
Duration: 2 min 23 s
Description: Indonesian capital Jakarta named world’s most polluted city

Jakarta was recently rated as having the worst air quality in the world, but environmental activists say significant changes to clean up are not forthcoming

They cite ineffective rules, unreliable emission data, and politicians’ corporate interests as the key obstacles to improving the city’s air quality

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Indonesians wear face masks due the high level of pollution in Jakarta on Tuesday. Photo: AFP

Joseph Rachman

Published: 9:30am, 24 Aug 2023Updated: 12:57pm, 24 Aug 2023

Indonesia’s inability to tackle air pollution in Jakarta means the capital city’s 10 million people will continue to confront smog for years to come, environmental activists said, blaming ineffective legislations, unreliable emission data and politicians’ interests in coal plants for the worsening problem.

Last week, Jakarta was declared to have the world’s worst air quality by Swiss tech firm IQAir – President Joko Widodo’s monthlong cough was even attributed to the city’s pollution level.

Widodo has convened ministers to deal with the pollution ahead of the Asean summit in Jakarta next month. Meanwhile, Minister for Tourism Sandiaga Uno suggested the city should learn from the clean-up efforts of Beijing, which spent US$100 billion in 2013 to remove old vehicles from the streets, cut factory emissions and replaced coal with natural gas to generate electricity.

“The air quality in the Greater Jakarta Area has been very bad,” Widodo said at a cabinet meeting last week. “The extended dry season spanning the past three months has intensified pollutant levels.”

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Indonesian capital Jakarta named world’s most polluted city

Despite the leaders’ remarks, activists are sceptical that the government’s proposed plans will lead to any notable improvement in the city’s air quality, pointing to past official foot-dragging.

In September 2021, an Indonesian court ruled that several officials, including Widodo and Jakarta’s former governor Anies Baswedan, had been negligent in handling the city’s air pollution problem.