BMKG Urges Collaborative Efforts to Tackle Climate Change on WWF 2024
Dwikorita Ratnawati at the 2024 WWF Press Conference, Monday (04/01). (Source: Infopublik)
Water crisis is a serious and real threat that must be a matter of concern to all countries in the world. Therefore, Head of the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) Dwikorita Karnawati encouraged the 10th World Water Forum (WWF) meeting, which will be held in Bali from May 18 to 25, to become a momentum to find joint solutions to resolve this problem.
“Realizing justice, availability and quality of water is currently still not considered fair globally or regionally. This is what should be discussed later including what steps that must be taken collaboratively,” said Dwikorita at the 9th West Merdeka Forum (FMB) under the title ‘Resilient Collaboration to Overcome Climate Change Challenges’, Monday (04/01), in Jakarta.
She said that one of the main causes of the water crisis is the continued increase of greenhouse gas emissions that leads to the increasing air temperature. As a result, the global warming process rises and highly affects climate change that can trigger water, food and even energy crises.
“The increasing frequency, intensity and duration of hydrometeorological disaster events is also a problem,” she added.
Based on the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) data collected from observations in 193 countries, the BMKG projects that in the next few years there will be water hotspots or drought areas in various countries.
“This means that many places will experience drought. [This can happen] in both developed and developing countries. America, Africa and countries in other continents are equally [affected],” said Dwikorita.
On the other hand, she continued, there are areas in the world where river water exceeds normal or even surplus that cause flooding. This condition is the evidence of how climate change is occurring in all countries of the world and the results will get worse if joint mitigation efforts are not carried out.
She went on to say that currently no water hotspots have been detected in Indonesia, but that does not mean that drought does not occur on a regional scale. If people are careless and fail to mitigate this, said Dwikorita, it is predicted that in 2045-2050, when Indonesia enters its golden age, there will be climate change and a food crisis.
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) some time ago estimated that in that year, a food crisis would hit almost all countries in the world. Approximately 500 million small-scale farmers who produce 80 percent of the world’s food sources are the most vulnerable to climate change.
“Extreme weather, extreme climate and other water-related events have caused 11,778 disaster events in the period 1970 to 2021,” she remarked. (INFOPUBLIC/UN) (EST/MMB)
