Wed 16 August 2023:
After recent severe air pollution in Jakarta, the Indonesian government urged its citizens to switch to electric vehicles (EV) to accelerate the country’s transition to greener energy, a minister said on Tuesday, Xinhua reported.
Indonesian Minister of State-Owned Enterprises Erick Thohir said the recent air pollution in Jakarta, which the government said was the worst in the archipelagic country’s history, was mainly caused by emissions from vehicles, industrial manufacturers and power plants.
“One of the solutions is to use alternative energy that is more environmentally friendly. Therefore, the government is pushing the transition from conventional fuel vehicles to electric vehicles,” Thohir told a virtual seminar.
The air quality in Jakarta and its satellite cities has worsened over the past week. President Joko Widodo said Monday that as of Aug. 13, the air quality index in the capital was at 156, meaning very unhealthy. According to him, the biggest contributor to air pollution was the use of coal.
Thohir said that like it or not people must change their habits and one step to take should be to use electric motorbikes and cars.
Meanwhile, local authorities blame the pollution spike on the dry season and vehicle emissions, and will soon carry out random checks on vehicles and force drivers to undergo emission tests.
World’s most polluted city
The Indonesian capital, which has long wrestled with air pollution, was ranked the most polluted city on global charts nearly every day last week.
President Joko Widodo on Monday even mandated that all civil servants work from home amid worsening air quality.
Last week, Jakarta saw its airborne concentration of the pollution particles known as PM2.5 outpace other heavily polluted cities such as Riyadh, Doha and Lahore, according to live data from Swiss air quality technology company IQAir. The company ranks pollution in major cities in real time every day.
Jakarta has also been consistently ranked among the 10 most polluted cities globally since May. The capital city and its surrounding region are home to about 30 million people.
SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES
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