AFP:
Jakarta ● Thursday, 10 August 2023
Jakarta has been the world's most polluted major city for several days, according to air quality monitoring firm IQAir, as authorities grapple with rising toxic smog.
Air pollution is estimated to cause 7 million premature deaths per year and is considered the greatest threat to environmental health by the United Nations.
The capital and its surroundings form a metropolitan area of about 30 million people, which for a week's concentration of fine particles, known as PM2.5, surpasses other heavily polluted cities, including Riyadh, Doha and Lahore.
Every day since Monday, it has surpassed pollution data from IQAir, a Swiss firm that tracks only major cities, AFP reports.
Jakarta regularly reports "unhealthy" levels of PM2.5, which can enter the airways and cause breathing problems several times higher than levels recommended by the World Health Organization.
President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo told reporters on Monday that the country plans to reduce pollution levels by reducing "Jakarta's burden" as it prepares to move its capital to Nusantara on the island of Kalimantan next year.
He also said the planned Jakarta metro train network "must be completed" to reduce pollution.
Residents complain that industrial smog, traffic jams and pollution from coal-fired power plants affect their lives and health.
“I have to wear a mask all the time. Both my body and my face are suffering," 32-year-old officer Angi Violeta from Jakarta told AFP.
"Last week my whole family was sick for a week and the doctor told me to stay at home," says the mother of two.
In 2021, a court ruled in favor of a lawsuit brought by activists and citizens against the government, ordering Jokowi to clean up the city's notorious air pollution and finding that he and other high-ranking officials were negligent in protecting residents to protect.
Indonesia has pledged to stop building new coal-fired power plants by 2023 and become carbon neutral by 2050.
But despite outrage from activists, the government is expanding the giant Suralaya coal-fired power station on the island of Java, one of the world's largest. Southeast Asia.
According to Greenpeace Indonesia, there are 10 coal-fired power plants operating within a 100 km radius of the capital.
