Rain, flooding, overpopulation. The Indonesian government wants to move the capital from Jakarta to a location considered safer.
Update 19 January 2022 – Indonesia's new capital will be called Nusantara. And as of today it does not yet exist. The parliament of the Asian nation has approved the farewell to the current capital, Jakarta, and the construction of the new one, which will rise some two thousand kilometres away, on the island of Borneo. The project had already been announced in 2019 by President Joko Widodo.
Nusantara will initially cover more than 56,000 hectares, and could reach 256,000 hectares. The Indonesian authorities have stated that the city will be conceived to be "zero-emissions": "It will be a smart capital, capable of serving as a centre for innovation." The budget made available for the project amounts to approximately 33 billion dollars; work is expected to begin this year.
The floods that struck Indonesia in recent months have caused dozens of deaths. The material damage, moreover, has been enormous. And thousands upon thousands of people have been forced to abandon their homes: two thousand in the capital alone, Jakarta.
The situation facing the Asian metropolis has been deteriorating for years, owing to climate change. The effects of which are particularly evident in this region, with torrential rains and tsunamis multiplying. As a result, the Indonesian government is considering a drastic solution: moving the capital off the island of Java.
"Analysing our models – explained Heri Andreas, a land management expert, speaking to the BBC in August 2018 – we can say that by 2050, around 95 per cent of the northern portion of Jakarta will be submerged." The situation of the capital is in any case particularly critical given that, even today, around 40 per cent of its territory lies below sea level.
And the latter is set inexorably to rise over the coming decades, as a result of the melting of polar ice. A process that will last centuries, according to the Special Report Sr15 published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Ipcc) in October 2018.
Furthermore, the northern part of the city has literally sunk over the past ten years, as a result of a massive and chaotic urban development. "The extraction of water from aquifers has reached unprecedented levels," explained Fook Chuan Eng, a World Bank specialist, speaking to the Reuters agency. "Residents," he added, "are drilling ever deeper. And the ground level is dropping."
For this reason, President Joko Widodo has invited his fellow citizens to choose the city they prefer as Indonesia's new capital. According to the local press, the new seat of government could ultimately be set at Palangka Raya, on the island of Borneo. The decision, however, does not convince everyone.
There is, in fact, a financial problem: according to the international press, relocating all the administrative offices could entail a decade of work and cost up to 33 billion dollars. Moreover, there are those who question whether this is the right strategy: "This doesn't solve the problem," observed Elisa Sutanudjaja, director of the Rujak Centre for Urban Studies, speaking to The Guardian. "Jakarta is similar to what Tokyo was like in the 1960s, with ground subsidence, flooding, natural disasters and overpopulation. If you want to tackle the issue seriously, you need solutions, not an escape."
