Indonesia's environment minister said Tuesday global warming was to blame after parts of the capital were flooded with sea water, forcing thousands of people to flee inundated homes and cutting off a highway leading to the international airport, according to AP. Authorities used pumps to lower water levels, which reached up to 1.7 meters (23 feet) in the worst-hit areas and washed 2 kilometers (more than a mile) inland, said Iskandar, an official at Jakarta's flood crisis center. «I haven't seen it this bad in several years,» said Toki, a policeman directing traffic around a flooded area near Sukarno-Hatta airport, where thousands of people have been stranded or trapped in the last 24 hours, forcing many flights to leave with only a handful of passengers. Environment Minister Rachmat Witoelar said global warming was at least partially to blame with rising sea levels making coastal cities like Jakarta especially vulnerable to flooding and monsoon storms. Authorities also ignored warnings about exceptionally high 18-year tide cycles, flood expert Jan Japp Brinkman told the Jakarta Post newspaper, and the situation was exacerbated by a failure to fix a sea barrier that was breached over a week ago. Iskandar, from the flood crisis center, said at least 2,200 houses were inundated with ankle-high to chest-deep water. The flooding came as Indonesia prepared to host the U.N. climate change conference from Dec. 3-14, which aims to start negotiations on a replacement for the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emissions that expires in 2012. The sprawling archipelagic nation is one of the largest contributors of carbon dioxide emissions, thanks to the rapid pace of deforestation, but experts say it is also at risk of becoming one of the biggest victims of global warming.
