Climate change

The USA and China are the world's largest emitters of carbon, mostly due to industrial and energy usages. The United States' rate stands at 6.005 billion tonnes per year, followed by China at 5.017 billion tonnes. According to data from the World Bank's report, "Indonesia and Climate Change: Current Status and Policies", Indonesia is now right behind them, with total annual CO2 emissions of 3.014 billion tonnes.

The cause of Indonesia's sudden progress to number three on the charts is the recent factoring-in of carbon emissions represented by deforestation and environmental degradation. Tropical deforestation contributes between 10 and 30% of international carbon emissions; rising carbon dioxide levels have been implicated as the primary cause of global warming since 1950.

Indonesia's yearly carbon dioxide emissions from energy, agriculture and waste are about 451 million tonnes, while forestry and land use change are estimated to account for a breathtaking 2.563 billion tonnes. Added to this are the emissions from wildfires and smoldering peat bogs, resulting in a fully-fledged environmental catastrophe.

A University of Leicester (UK) report from 2002 demonstrated that the 1997 “El Nino” year burning season released as much carbon into the atmosphere as the entire planet's biosphere removes from it in a year. The rate of emissions was dramatically influenced by the combustion of the peat bogs underneath the rainforests. It's likely that the 1997 fires were likely solely responsible for the massive boost in CO2 emissions seen in 1997-1998: according to researchers this was the largest annual increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration detected since records began in 1957.