Desperate to clear toxic haze, Indonesia douses its skies with dry ice

illuminem summarises for you the essential news of the day, reviewed by our editorial team. Read the full piece on BBC News or enjoy below:

🗞️ Driving the news: Indonesia has launched an experimental effort to disperse toxic wildfire haze by dropping dry ice — solid carbon dioxide — from aircraft over South Sumatra
• The trial targets Palembang and surrounding areas, where dangerous smog from forest and peatland fires has severely degraded air quality
• Authorities hope the technique will lift haze into higher layers of the atmosphere, but its effectiveness remains unproven

🔭 The context: Indonesia is experiencing its most severe wildfire season in a decade, exacerbated by drought conditions linked to an unusually strong El Niño
• Authorities have also been using cloud seeding to encourage rainfall, while firefighters deploy helicopters and ground crews to control blazes
• More than one million wildfire hotspots have been recorded this year, and police have named over 200 individuals and nine companies as suspects connected to the fires
• Agricultural land-clearing practices involving vegetation burning remain a major concern

🌍 Why it matters for the planet: Forest and peatland fires release greenhouse gases, destroy biodiversity and produce hazardous air pollution that threatens public health across national borders
• While weather-modification techniques may offer temporary relief, preventing deliberate burning, protecting peatlands and strengthening fire management are essential to addressing the underlying causes

⏭️ What’s next: The dry ice trial will use 1.5 tonnes of material. If authorities consider it successful, they may extend the approach to other heavily affected areas, including Central Kalimantan
• Meanwhile, Indonesia and Malaysia continue cloud-seeding operations and firefighting efforts as haze spreads across the region, including Singapore and Malaysia.

💬 One quote: “If this trial is successful, we will continue with other areas that are central to the haze, such as Central Kalimantan and its surroundings.” — Dudung Abdurachman, Indonesia’s coordinating minister for political and security affairs.

📈 One stat: Nearly 900,000 hectares of land have burned in Indonesia this year, according to the independent forest-monitoring platform Nusantara Atlas

Subscribe to our free newsletters to never miss a beat in sustainability.

The world needs sustainability knowledge. At illuminem, no interest group or shareholder can influence our work. Thank you for supporting our mission to make high-quality and independent sustainability information free for all. Every contribution helps. **Thank you for donating today**