What is the cost of Indonesia’s haze fires?

The 2015 Indonesia haze fires, exacerbated by El Niño, razed 1.7 million hectares of land and emitted an estimated 1.7 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent. The fires, often used for cheap land clearing for palm oil and wood products, caused severe air pollution and sickened over 500,000 people.

• In 2015, fires in Indonesia razed 1.7 million hectares of forests and plantations on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra. By early November, scientists recorded nearly 121,000 fires, with concentrations in Jambi and Riau provinces on Sumatra, and West and Central Kalimantan on Borneo.
• The fires emitted approximately 1.7 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalent in 2015. On several days in September and October, these emissions were higher than the average daily emissions from all economic activity in the United States.
• The resulting haze caused significant health crises between July 1 and October 23, killing 10 people and sickening more than 500,000 across six provinces: Riau, Jambi, South Sumatra, South Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan, and West Kalimantan. Air quality near peatlands reached particulate matter levels exceeding 1,000 microgrammes per cubic metre, more than three times the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's hazardous threshold.
• Deforestation for agriculture, palm oil, and wood products has left peatlands exposed and flammable. While fire is used as a cheap land-clearing method, 20 percent of the fires occurred on oil palm concessions.

APA

Tang, A. (2015). What is the cost of Indonesia’s haze fires? World Economic Forum. https://www.weforum.org/stories/nature-and-biodiversity/what-is-the-cost-of-indonesias-haze-fires/

Chicago

Tang, Alisa. What is the cost of Indonesia’s haze fires? World Economic Forum, 2015. https://www.weforum.org/stories/nature-and-biodiversity/what-is-the-cost-of-indonesias-haze-fires/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Tang |first1=Alisa |title=What is the cost of Indonesia’s haze fires? |publisher=World Economic Forum |date=16 November 2015 |url=https://www.weforum.org/stories/nature-and-biodiversity/what-is-the-cost-of-indonesias-haze-fires/ |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{tang2015what, author = {Tang, Alisa}, title = {{What is the cost of Indonesia’s haze fires?}}, institution = {World Economic Forum}, year = {2015}, month = nov, url = {https://www.weforum.org/stories/nature-and-biodiversity/what-is-the-cost-of-indonesias-haze-fires/}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }