ITB Professor: Early Action Mechanism for Facing El Niño Needs Strengthening

Jakarta (ANTARA) — Early action mechanisms for dealing with El Nino need to be strengthened so that its impacts can be anticipated from the outset, said Professor of Environmental Planning and Head of the Climate Change Centre at Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB), Djoko Santoso Abi Suroso.

Speaking at a National Dialogue organised by the Ministry of National Development Planning/Bappenas in Jakarta on Tuesday, Djoko explained that El Nino follows a recurring and predictable pattern.

Its impacts include drought, delayed planting, forest and land fires, haze, and pressure on food prices, and should therefore be anticipated.

“Because the pattern is recurring and predictable, the large losses in each cycle show that the problem is not a lack of information, but the absence of an early action mechanism,” Djoko said.

Similar impacts occurred during the 2015/2016 El Nino, which triggered forest and land fires covering around 2.6 million hectares with losses reaching Rp220 trillion, and were seen again in 2023 when the National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB) recorded 487 forest and land fire incidents.

According to him, the El Nino cycle can no longer be treated as a rare anomaly.