Climate Change and the Sustainability of the Built Environment in the Humid Tropic of Indonesia

Abstract

As a developing country, Indonesia needs to develop its facilities and infrastructure to improve its people’s wellbeing. As a consequence of the development, much of its energy sources, particularly its fossil fuels, have to be consumed, emitting a huge amount of carbon dioxide, accelerating global warming and climate change. In many cases, development would increase a country’s carbon emissions and its ecological footprint (EF), which could threaten the sustainability of the whole earth. Indonesia is no exception; the development of this nation would emit much more carbon dioxide as around 95 % of this country’s energy demand is supplied currently by fossil fuels. Considering the fact that Indonesia has a huge potential of renewable energy sources, substituting the fossil fuels by renewable sources would help this country to develop without emitting so much carbon dioxide, thus retarding the effects of climate change. Along with the diversification from fossil fuels to renewable energy, changing the human attitudes so as to behave wisely to use less energy would help this country keep its EF low, thus sustaining its development without adding to global warming and climate change.