‘We should concern the tree’: Indonesian President requires sustainability collaboration at Stanford

“Do I appear like a member of the Stanford household now?” Indonesian President Joko Widodo, generally often known as “Jokowi,” requested the viewers at Schwab Residential Heart as he confirmed off his pink tie worn within the Stanford spirit. “Now you see how it is very important be linked to one another as individuals, and so too is the significance of being linked to nature.”

Jokowi spoke Wednesday on the collaboration between Stanford and Indonesia on sustainability, as a part of the Doerr Faculty of Sustainability’s Dean’s Lecture Sequence, a discussion board that brings leaders to debate improvements in sustainability. He highlighted Indonesia’s current environmental achievements and sustainable improvement for its new metropolis, Nusantara, which is able to substitute Jakarta because the nation’s capital.

Jokowi’s go to to Stanford was a part of his bigger journey to the USA for the Asia-Pacific Financial Cooperation (APEC) Financial Leaders’ Week held in San Francisco this week.  His speech at Stanford adopted a gathering with President Joe Biden on Monday concerning varied topics within the U.S.-Indonesia Complete Strategic Partnership together with mineral mining, maritime safety within the South China Sea and clear vitality transitions.

Dean of the Doerr Faculty Arun Majumdar expressed delight at Biden and Jokowi’s announcement of the excellent strategic partnership between the U.S. and Indonesia on Monday. 

“In our small method, we at Stanford wish to convey that imaginative and prescient to actuality,” Majumdar stated, referencing Biden’s imaginative and prescient of a powerful U.S.-Indonesia collaboration in quite a lot of fields, together with sustainable city improvement, local weather financing and clear know-how innovation. 

Jim Leape, co-director of Stanford’s Heart for Ocean Options and former director basic of the World Wildlife Fund, stated the president’s go to will convey visibility to Stanford-Indonesia tasks resembling local weather finance, clear vitality transitions, sustainable improvement of Nusantara and sustainable aquatic meals.

“There are very thrilling analysis initiatives simply getting underway with companions in Indonesia, and his go to supplies a pleasant enhance to these nascent efforts that we hope are the start of longer, broader collaborations. [It’s] implausible to have the president right here, as these start to take off,” Leape stated.

Indonesia, the third largest democracy on the planet and fourth most populous nation, faces a number of sustainability challenges because it balances its considerable pure assets, quickly creating financial system and sustainability targets, each as a nation and for its new capital metropolis, Nusantara. 

Jokowi referred to as Nusantara a “sensible metropolis,” with 70% of it being “inexperienced zones.” A botanical heart with the capability to carry 15 million tree seedlings per yr — thrice as many bushes as are presently planted in New York Metropolis — shall be planted in Nusantara and on the island of Kalimantan, he stated in an interview with the New York Occasions. 

“It’s very uncommon that the world will get to design and construct a metropolis from scratch, and it might be a mannequin for the remainder of the world [on what] sustainable city dwelling is all about,” Majumdar stated, highlighting the sustainable city improvement alternatives of Nusantara. 

Jokowi additionally invited Stanford college students to go on a “study-tour” of Nusantara, encouraging college students to be taught from the sustainable improvement course of in individual. 

“I’m a forestry graduate, so if wanted, I may be your information,” Jokowi stated. 

He spoke about Indonesia’s current environmental accomplishments, together with lowering emissions by 91.5 million tons, rehabilitating 77,000 hectares of forest space and restoring 34,000 hectares of mangrove forests in a yr. He additionally raised Indonesia’s current efforts in constructing the biggest floating solar energy plant in Southeast Asia, situated in Indonesia’s Cirata reservoir. 

Jokowi additionally talked concerning the massive and equitable investments wanted for “know-how switch and collaboration” in offering reasonably priced vitality for individuals in Indonesia and different creating international locations within the vitality transition. 

Concluding the occasion, Majumdar and representatives from Indonesia publicly signed a joint assertion agreeing to discover alternatives to work collectively on analysis and training tasks in areas the place there are linkages between Stanford scholarship and Indonesia’s sustainability targets, together with tasks resembling low-carbon financial improvement, financing the transition to a extra sustainable society, assembly urgent meals priorities and constructing a brand new, sustainable capital metropolis.

Linda Mulyani MBA ’24, an Indonesian pupil, stated the general public signing of the joint assertion made her “really feel like they’re very critical about this.” 

“I really feel some sense of measured optimism,” Mulyani stated. “Because the President talked about, [construction] goes to take one other 15-20 years and there’s a presidential election developing subsequent yr.”

Jokowi’s go to to Stanford and Indonesia’s sustainability endeavors are additionally contextualized by Indonesia’s upcoming presidential election, throughout which Jokowi won’t be operating for re-election. 

“The difficulty of sustainability is on everyone’s thoughts on this planet. Whichever candidates are operating are prone to take possession with the difficulty of sustainability. With the extent that the brand new capital metropolis is positioned [with] a story of sustainability, I feel it’s inseparable from what’s essential,” stated Gita Wirjawan, the previous Minister of Commerce of Indonesia. 

In response to Wirjawan, this go to is “essential by way of symbolizing what’s crucial for humanity and what’s crucial for the world going ahead.” 

“We will not take a simple stroll,” Jokowi stated. “We should run quick. We should concern the tree.”