‘We have to improve our resistance to climate change’
Climate vulnerability and resilience in Indonesia
“Global warming is part of our lives”, says Dr. Ruandha Agung Sugardiman, the Director General of Climate Change for the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry. Dr. Sugardiman delivered his public lecture earlier this month at the University of Twente, highlighting Indonesia’s Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) in the forest sector. NDC is a policy document required by the Paris Agreement, which stipulates the country’s targets and strategies for climate change mitigation and adaptation.
During an interview after his lecture, Dr. Sugardiman shared his views regarding climate vulnerability and resilience in the context of a developing country: “In Indonesia, the most vulnerable sectors to climate change are the food and health sectors. Massive disruptions in these two important areas will threaten national security. Therefore, it is extremely important to improve our resilience to climate change. Furthermore, considering the physical and social complexity of the Indonesian archipelago, resilience engineering should consider site-specific characteristics, and therefore we should invest time in participatory planning and preparation, before executing a program.”
Dr. Sugardiman completed his master degree from the faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation, University of Twente and obtained his doctoral degree from the Wageningen University. Together with a delegation of his Ministry, the Ministry of Finance, and the local Government of Aceh, he visited the Netherlands under the framework of the EU-funded project on the ‘Support to Indonesia’s Climate Change Response.’
This article was written by our 4TU reporter Kamia Handayani.