Hans Nicholas Jong, Jakarta – "Going to Dubai was an act of desperation," says Muninggar, a 48-year-old former fish farmer from northern Java. "There were no jobs left in the village. If I wasn't forced to, I wouldn't have gone – my kids were still small."
Like many Indonesians on the frontlines of climate change, Muninggar has seen erratic weather and rising temperatures destroy her livelihood, forcing her to migrate in search of a living.
Her story echoes those of Indigenous farmers in Borneo and disabled fishers in eastern Indonesia, all facing the same reality: the climate crisis is deepening inequality and displacing those least responsible for it.
Now, these communities are uniting to demand that climate justice be recognized as a constitutional right – part of a growing movement behind Indonesia's first proposed Climate Justice Bill.
Migrant workers
Over the course of a few years, increasingly erratic weather devastated Muninggar's fish ponds.
"During the dry season, the seawater didn't rise high enough, turning the pond water yellow. When that happened, the fish, shrimp and crabs died – I suffered total harvest failure," she says.
She took out a bank loan to stay afloat, but after five years of unpredictable weather and mounting losses, she was forced to close her pond, as were many of her neighbors.
In September 2021, she chose to seek work abroad as a domestic helper, hoping that a job in Dubai would help pay off her debts and support her three school-aged children.
"For women, overseas work seemed the only option," Muninggar tells Mongabay at a dialogue in Jakarta, adding she felt she had no other choice, even though that meant leaving her children behind. "How can children grow up without their mother?"
But that hope of a decent livelihood vanished when a fire broke out at the home where she worked in December 2021, killing her employer. Muninggar was accused of negligence and spent eight months in an Emirati jail before being released and sent back to Indonesia in August 2022.
Back home, she still can't restart her fish farm; climate change has made aquaculture too unpredictable.
"During my fish-farming days, the dry season was extreme. We had to buy clean water just to wash our hands," she says. For her fish pond, she says, there was no way to get enough clean water.
Muninggar says she hopes the Indonesian government will pay more attention to villagers whose livelihoods have been upended by climate change.
Her story reflects how climate pressures are forcing people across Indonesia to leave their homes in search of more viable livelihoods elsewhere. Among them is Resilianto from Tegal district in Central Java province. He signed up as a deckhand on a Chinese fishing vessel after the loss of his farmland and increasingly unpredictable weather made it harder to survive as a farmer.
"Many rivers have dried up," he tells Mongabay. "In the past, farmers could take water directly from the river to their fields, but now they can't. Farmers must spend more money to drill boreholes and buy diesel to pump water from those holes to the rice fields."
During three years at sea, Resilianto says, he faced abuses ranging from withheld wages to discriminatory treatment by the Chinese crew toward the non-Chinese workers. He eventually left the ship when it docked in Oman, and sought protection at the Indonesian embassy. Like Muninggar, Resilianto, too, was repatriated to Indonesia.
Their stories are increasingly echoed across the Global South, where climate shocks are driving new forms of displacement, forcing workers to risk trafficking or death at sea in search of survival, according to Irmawati, a lecturer in international relations at the Jakarta Institute of Social and Political Sciences (IISIP).
According to the Geneva-based Internal Displacement Monitoring Center (IDMC), around 32.6 million people globally were forced to migrate due to climate-related disasters in 2022. The Sydney-headquartered Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) projects that this number could rise to 1.2 billion by 2050.
Together, the agricultural and maritime sectors employ nearly 80% of Indonesia's workforce – yet they're also among the most affected by climate change, Irmawati says. She points to the plight of the country's small-scale fishers: "We have to sail farther to get fish. If we go farther, we compete with large vessels that use bigger nets. So we are forced to become migrant workers to meet our livelihoods, but on the other hand we do not have an equal position because we become forced migrants. We become migrants because there is no other choice."
Because migrant workers have little bargaining power and few options, they're vulnerable to human trafficking and exploitation, Irmawati adds.
"Migration and climate change are interconnected crises," she says. "If it's only civil society working without a legal umbrella, it cannot work properly. There needs to be government regulation and measures to break the vicious circle of climate impacts."
Indigenous peoples
Another group bearing the brunt of climate change is Indigenous peoples, such as the Dayak people of West Kalimantan province in Indonesian Borneo.
Yosef Uset, a 52-year-old Dayak farmer in Kapuas Hulu district, says weather patterns have shifted dramatically in recent years.
"Before, there were clear seasons. The dry season started around August or September, and the rainy season in December," he tells Mongabay in his village of Labian Ira'ang. "Now, December can be hot, then rainy, then hot again. The weather is unpredictable – we can't read it anymore."
This unpredictability has harmed farming in Labian Ira'ang, says Herkulanus Agustinus Joko, the village secretary.
"Our village used to be the biggest vegetable producer," he says. "Now we can't grow vegetables anymore because of the unpredictable weather and floods."
For the Dayak community, climate change isn't some abstract notion – its impacts on food security are direct, visible, and very much present.
Yet both Yosef and Herkulanus say they've never heard the term "climate change." "I don't know what that is," Yosef says.
They say they can only hope for conditions to return to how they once were, when the land still yielded a bounty and their livelihoods were secure.
People with disabilities
People with disabilities are another group often neglected in Indonesia's climate discourse.
Rizal Assor, a 47-year old man with a disability who uses wheelchair from the city of Ternate in eastern Indonesia and a member of the Bajau ethnic group, said people with disabilities contribute very little to the climate crisis, yet bear its heaviest impacts.
"We lose our homes, livelihoods, even our lives," he says at the Jakarta dialogue.
"The sea was calmer before. The winds weren't as strong as they are now, and the waves could still be anticipated," Rizal says. "Even as a person with a disability, I could travel and work without fear of suddenly being caught in a storm, strong winds, or high waves."
Now, unpredictable weather has made traveling between islands increasingly dangerous.
"I've felt firsthand how the climate crisis worsens barriers that already exist," he says. "Now I face heavy rains, tidal floods, high waves, and droughts that make it difficult to access clean water or evacuate. We're increasingly anxious – physically and mentally exhausted – and it adds to the stigma we already face."
Rizal says these barriers often mean that people with disabilities are left behind when disaster strikes. That's echoed by Salwa from Kendal district in Central Java, who tells of a mentally disabled relative being left behind by family during a flood in April this year.
"He was left alone on the second floor of his house, just 500 meters from the coast, without clean water or electricity for three days because his family feared he would disturb others at the evacuation center," Salwa tells Mongabay.
"He was left behind by my aunt because of the stigma that mentally disabled people are crazy," she adds. "While he is physically fine, he might feel abandoned."
Rizal adds that people with disabilities also face major obstacles in accessing government aid.
"Government aid during disasters is still not disability-friendly: information is limited, evacuation centers are inaccessible, and food aid often fails to meet our needs, even though social protection should account for the extra costs of disability," he says.
Push for a climate justice law
These voices from Indonesia's margins are part of a broader demand from the Global South: those least responsible for the climate crisis must not be left behind or silenced.
To ensure climate justice, civil society groups and marginalized communities are urging the Indonesian government and lawmakers to pass a Climate Justice Bill.
Indonesia currently has no dedicated legislation addressing climate change, says Raynaldo Sembiring, executive director of the Indonesian Center for Environmental Law (ICEL).
"There is no law that directly addresses the problems faced by the people here today. That's why we're urging the government and parliament to discuss this Climate Justice Bill," he says. "The bill must recognize vulnerable communities, provide protection, and resolve the legal challenges related to climate impacts."
One challenge, Raynaldo says, is that Indonesia's climate vision is fragmented; each ministry and government agency has its own timeline for getting to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions. And the principle of climate justice still isn't mainstreamed in policy, he says, with Indonesia's emissions reduction targets seen as unambitious.
The proposed legislation could make Indonesia the first nation in Southeast Asia to enshrine climate justice into law, potentially setting a regional precedent.
Civil society groups have campaigned for the bill for years, but progress has been slow. Parliament has its own version, but the groups say it falls short of ensuring justice, so they've drafted an alternative version.
Despite the slow pace, some lawmakers have voiced support. Syarif Hasan, a member of parliament from the National Democratic (NasDem) Party, says the bill must be passed since climate justice is a universal right.
"The climate doesn't have an ID card. Clean air doesn't have an ID card. They belong to all of us, so all of us must fight to ensure that this Climate Justice Bill is passed quickly," he says. "We will push for the swift passage of this bill, because the climate belongs to everyone, not to an exclusive group."
Rieke Diah Pitaloka, a member of parliament from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), says people should have a real say in the drafting of the bill as part of their right to participate in political decision-making.
Raynaldo says the draft developed by the civil society groups is based on consultations with communities across 14 regions, covering nine key issues.
"Across all of them, the common thread is injustice," he says.
For Indonesia's marginalized communities, the fight for climate justice is not just about protecting the environment; it's also about securing the right to live and work with dignity in a rapidly changing world.
Rizal says that despite facing multiple barriers – limited access, discrimination, and the growing threat of climate change impacts – people with disabilities like him are determined to keep contributing to their communities.
"We reject being treated as objects of pity. We are part of the solution. Ignoring our voices means ignoring justice," he says. "Climate justice is justice for all – including us, people with disabilities. Together, we are stronger."