While the issue of climate change remains a hot topic, and the effects only get worse, cities around the globe feel the blow. Thus, Surabaya, Indonesia’s second largest city is no exception either. Because of the constant elevation in sea levels and rainfall in the coastal regions, the city experiences very serious floods, which are dangerous to the lives of the people and their property. Recent findings from a study published in Nature Climate Change highlight a concerning trend: severe natural disasters fail to enhance the political parties’ concern with environmental problems, which puts an emphasis on the awareness of political decision-makers in Surabaya and other regions regarding climate change effects.
Wappenhans et al. (2024) used survey data and a sample of over 260,000 press releases released by political parties in Europe concerning 69 extreme weather events and fatalities. These event analyses brought out findings indicating multiculturalism that Green parties as well as most other political actors did not have the enhanced environmental attention past these events. The authors pointed out that even the extinction-level weather incidents do not result in steady political activity concerning climate change, which indicates that the public is frustrated with political inaction.
This discovery is rather worrisome since the changing climate impact has already begun to manifest itself in cities such as Surabaya. They say, the floods occur more often and are more severe in their intensity thus, impeding the normal lives of the dwellers and posing serious health risks. According to the study, political non-championing of environmental causes could pose a challenge to the fight against these effects.
In order to address this question and get a better understanding of youth’s attitude towards climate change in Surabaya I interviewed Imelda Putri, a student from Airlangga University with a degree in Physics. She presented her worries about climate change by developing some pictures of the city.
“We have seen that Surabaya after all easily experiences extreme flood disasters and yet we do not see the government to be effectively combating them” she opined.
Speaking of the efforts made, there seems to be a dire lack of leadership awareness and activity to safeguard the city and its population. Imelda supports the idea and in line with the finding of the study urging the political leaders to act on the climate challenge.
She went on to say “It is shocking that even after devastating disasters, some political parties turn their attention towards solving short term problems instead of going for sustainable ones.” This is the urgent call for more sustainable actions and measures toward mitigating climate change.
The implications of the study are clear: political parties must understand that climate change is an existing problem and it affects those regions and cities such Surabaya. This is because the occurrence of such incidents increases as the climate changes and therefore requires precaution. These are expenditures on improvements to infrastructure, better pre-disaster preparation and the encouragement of sustainable management.
Nevertheless, young people such as Imelda should be heard when climate policy is being discussed. In this paper, the advocacy by the youth will be essential in ensuring that the political leaders take responsibility for the environment. Therefore, their opinion and experiences as the future generation of voters are crucial amidst a promising future.
In light of this, the outcomes of the study conducted by Wappenhans et al. (2024) come as startling revelation to political leaders especially those in Surabaya. A large part of the conflict between public opinion and political decision-making regarding climate change must be resolved to protect the lives of communities experiencing climate change’s tangible repercussions. As Imelda correctly pointed out, “ Leaders are required to listen and act before catastrophe happens.” The time has come to achieve the tangible goal toward the goal, and environmental factors remain central for political actors to ensure the future of Surabaya.
References : Wappenhans, T., Valentim, A., Klüver, H., & Stoetzer, L. F. (2024). Extreme weather events do not increase political parties' environmental attention. Nature Climate Change, 14, 696–699. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-024-02024-z