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Russia owns the only plant in the world capable of reprocessing spent uranium

The war in Ukraine has put into question the future of the reprocessing sector.

By Perrine Mouterde and Marjorie Cessac

Published on December 3, 2022

The cooling towers of the Seversk plant in Siberia (Russia), November 2, 2010. DMITRI SHIPULIA / RUSSIAN WIKIPEDIA / PUBLIC DOMAIN

Unlike other Eastern European countries, France does not depend on Russia to operate its 18 power plants. Natural uranium is imported from Niger, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Australia. It is then converted and enriched in the nuclear fuel cycle company Orano's facilities at the Malvési and Tricastin sites, both located in southern France. Fuels are then manufactured by the French company Framatome or the American company Westinghouse.

But the war in Ukraine, which has exposed European and global dependence on the Russian nuclear industry, is not totally without consequences for the French sector. Today, only one facility can "recycle" the uranium from the fuel used in the complex's 56 reactors: the Seversk plant, located in the Tomsk region of Siberia, which belongs to the Russian group Rosatom.

A definitive halt to uranium trade between Paris and Moscow would inevitably have consequences for an already weakened reprocessing sector and in the long run could lead to uranium from spent fuel being considered as additional waste to be managed, rather than as a potentially reusable material.

For the past two years, France has sent uranium to Russia. The anti-nuclear NGO Greenpeace has documented at least five deliveries between January 2021 and January 2022: 11 containers loaded in the port of Le Havre on February 12, 2021; 20 containers loaded in Dunkerque on October 29, 2021; and 13 containers in the same port in November 2021. On September 28, 2022, seven months after the invasion of Ukraine began, the organization revealed that the Russian cargo ship Mikhail Dudin was docked in the port of Dunkerque.

"The cargo ship's non-stop return trips between St. Petersburg and Dunkerque show the extent to which the French nuclear industry is trapped by its dependence on Russia," said Pauline Boyer, Greenpeace's energy and nuclear transition campaigner. "France must urgently stop all nuclear energy trade with Russia." The nuclear sector is not subject to European sanctions.

Contract with Rosatom closed

The French group Orano, which owns the reprocessed uranium (RepU) mainly from foreign power plants and which signed a contract in 2020 with Rosatom, has confirmed that it has made "five or six deliveries" to Russia, amounting to a volume of 1,150 tonnes. However, the company told Le Monde that this contract has now been closed, with the final uranium shipment having taken place in October 2022. Orano also says it is not considering signing a new contract with the Russian nuclear giant.

For EDF, which operates French power plants and therefore owns the reprocessed uranium from spent fuel, the stakes are higher. In 2018, the multinational electric utility company signed a contract with a Rosatom subsidiary, Tenex, to process RepU, also at Seversk. In March 2022, the High Committee for Transparency and Information on Nuclear Safety stated that EDF "has been sending batches for re-enrichment since 2021." At the end of October, Orano was not considering investing in a conversion facility in the short term, due to a lack of sufficient outlets.

When contacted, the company did not give details of the implementation of this contract but assured that "no delivery or import" of uranium to or from Russia "has taken place since February 2022." According to information from Greenpeace, the government has summoned EDF to stop its exports. The ministry of energy transition does not wish to comment on this matter.

EDF also claims to have "initiated discussions" with Orano and Westinghouse to set up a RepU conversion facility in Western Europe. "The plant's construction will take about 10 years and will postpone the ability to reuse this material," the energy company explained. "In the meantime, the RepU will be stored at Pierrelatte [southern France], in warehouses." At the end of October, Orano was not considering investing in a conversion facility in the short term, due to a lack of adequate outlets. "We are available if there is a need, but there must be a real demand to develop a new facility," the group explained, adding that, "for the moment, there [was] no urgency."

France is in fact one of the only countries to have opted for reprocessing, and therefore to need such facilities. Once the spent fuel assemblies are unloaded from the power plants and cooled, the elements that make them up are separated: the residual waste (4%) is stored at La Hague (northern France); the plutonium (1%) is sent to Marcoule (southern France) to make a new fuel called Mox; the reprocessed uranium (95%) is sent to Orano's facilities in Pierrelatte. Officially intended for reuse, the plutonium and RepU are considered radioactive materials, not waste.

Risk of saturation

Between 1972 and 2010, several thousand tonnes of RepU were sent to Russia. In 2010, these exports ended for economic reasons – the price of natural uranium was low – but also for environmental reasons since the process used to transform uranium at Seversk at the time was particularly polluting. Since 2013, the reuse of converted and re-enriched RepU, which is only possible at the Cruas power plant (southern France), has stopped. EDF confirmed that it wanted to restart this operation in 2023 "at least for a recharge" in order to "demonstrate the recyclable nature of the RepU."

In the Pierrelatte warehouses, nearly 34,000 tonnes of RepU are accumulating, with stocks increasing by about 1,000 tonnes per year. Because of the risk of saturation, new storage capacity is to be put into service soon. The situation had already prompted the French nuclear safety authority (ASN) to mention, in October 2020, "the prospect of a possible requalification of reprocessed uranium as radioactive waste for volumes not used." Even if the RepU were reused from 2023, this would not be enough to compensate for the annual production, the nuclear watchdog explained.

"In the event that there is no prospect of long-term use for reprocessing uranium, it should then be requalified and managed as waste," the ASN maintained. "The decision whether or not to continue reprocessing belongs to the institutional and industrial stakeholders." "Either a conversion project sees the light of day outside Russia, or we will have to repose the question of RepU's classification," said Igor Le Bars, director of safety expertise at the Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûreté Nucléaire.

Opponents of nuclear energy have long denounced the choice of reprocessing, considered a means of "maintaining the illusion of a 'green' fuel cycle and nuclear power," although this option generates costs, as well as transport materials, and waste. While the industry emphasizes that 96% of spent fuel is "recoverable," only plutonium is currently reused.

The Melox plant (southern France), where Mox fuel is manufactured from plutonium along with depleted uranium, has also experienced great difficulties in recent years. The nuclear industry, however, maintains the idea that reprocessing makes it possible to reduce the quantity of natural uranium excavated, as well as the volume of waste involved.

Perrine Mouterde and Marjorie Cessac

Peru: Impeached president Pedro Castillo arrested, vice president Dina Boluarte sworn in as new leader

The president of Peru was ousted by Congress after he sought to dissolve the legislative body and take unilateral control of the government, triggering a constitutional crisis.

Le Monde with AP and AFP

Published on December 7, 2022

Peru's leftist president Pedro Castillo was ousted by lawmakers and arrested Wednesday, December 7, in a dizzying series of events in a country long prone to political upheaval. Dina Boluarte, a 60-year-old lawyer, was sworn in as Peru's first female president just hours after Mr. Castillo tried to dissolve Congress in a move criticized as an attempted coup.

The day of high drama began with Mr. Castillo facing his third impeachment attempt since the former rural school teacher unexpectedly won power from Peru's traditional political elite in an election 18 months ago.

In a televised address to the nation, the 53-year-old announced that he was dissolving the opposition-dominated Congress, installing a curfew and would rule by decree. As criticism poured in over the address, lawmakers defiantly gathered earlier than planned to debate the impeachment motion and approved it, with 101 votes out of a total of 130 lawmakers.

Mr. Castillo was impeached for his "moral incapacity" to exercise power, after a litany of crises including six investigations against him, five cabinet reshuffles and large protests. The constitution allows impeachment proceedings to be brought against a president based on alleged political rather than legal wrongdoing – making impeachments commonplace in Peru.

Mr. Castillo was arrested on Wednesday evening, said Marita Barreto, coordinator of a team of prosecutors who deal with government corruption. A source in the attorney general's office told Agence France-Presse he was being investigated for rebellion. Mr. Castillo became the third president since 2018 to be sacked under the "moral incapacity" provision in the constitution.

In this photo provided by Peru's police administration office, former president Pedro Castillo, second from left, and former prime minister Anibal Torres, far left, sit as prosecutor Marco Huaman stands at the center inside a police station, where Mr. Castillo and Mr. Torres' status was not immediately clear. In Lima, Peru, on December 7, 2022. AP

Within two hours, Ms. Boluarte took the oath of office in front of Congress to serve out the rest of Mr. Castillo's term, until July 2026. Peru is no stranger to political instability: It had three different presidents in five days in 2020 and is now on its sixth president since 2016.

Political outsider

After the impeachment vote, Mr. Castillo left the presidential palace with a bodyguard, heading to the Lima police headquarters before his arrest was officially announced. His supporters criticized their leader's ousting. "I want to denounce the fact that our president has been kidnapped by the national police, that he has been detained with premeditation and treachery by Congress," said retired soldier Manuel Gaviria, 59,

Mr. Castillo came out of seemingly nowhere to win 50.12% of votes in a June 2021 runoff election against right-wing Keiko Fujimori, the corruption-charged daughter of graft-convicted ex-president Alberto Fujimori.

He was born in a small village where he worked as a teacher for 24 years, and was largely unknown until he led a national strike in 2017 that forced the then-government to agree to pay rise demands. Mr. Castillo sought to portray himself as a humble servant of the people, traveling on horseback for much of his presidential campaign and promising to end to corruption.

However, allegations against him quickly flooded in. The investigations he is facing range from alleged graft and obstruction of justice to plagiarizing his university thesis. In October, Peru's attorney general also filed a constitutional complaint accusing Mr. Castillo of heading a criminal organization involving his family and allies.

Mr. Castillo and his lawyers long argued the investigations against him were part of a plot to unseat him. "This intolerable situation cannot continue," he said earlier Wednesday as he announced he planned to convene a new Congress to draft a new constitution within nine months.

'Now former president'

Hundreds of protesters gathered in front of Congress ahead of the vote. "We are tired of this corrupt government that was stealing from day one," said 51-year-old Johana Salazar.

Ricardo Palomino, a 50-year-old systems engineer, said Mr. Castillo's attempt to dissolve parliament was "totally unacceptable and unconstitutional. It went against everything and these are the consequences."

Ahead of the impeachment, the United States demanded Castillo "reverse his decision," before saying it no longer considered him to be the president. "My understanding is that, given the action of the Congress, he is now former president Castillo," State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters, saying lawmakers took "corrective action" in line with democratic rules.

Le Monde with AP and AFP

How Will China Turn Its Economy Back On? The World Is About to Find Out.

Strict “zero Covid” curbs have been smothering growth. After easing them, Beijing faces the twin challenges of rising caseloads and wary consumers.

A deserted shopping mall in Shanghai on Thursday. Spending might not bounce back swiftly, economists warn. Credit...Qilai Shen for The New York Times

By Keith Bradsher

Reporting from Shanghai

Dec. 8, 2022, 5:13 a.m. ET

For months, investors and C.E.O.s waited anxiously for China to ease up on its Covid restrictions, which burdened the economy and were out of sync with the rest of the world. Stock markets rallied on mere rumors of policy changes. Companies warned that “zero Covid” was hurting business.

Now that China has finally started rolling back its strict mix of mass testing, lockdowns and quarantines, its economy is entering a delicate period when it will face a set of challenges that do not fit neatly with other countries’ experiences during the pandemic.

Spending by consumers is unlikely to reawaken swiftly after being smothered for so long, analysts say. China faces a severe downturn in housing and must race to vaccinate more of its population, especially seniors. China’s factories, the motor of the country’s commerce with the world, confront weakening demand from key trading partners like the United States and Europe, both of which are staring down possible recessions.

“China’s economy has been hobbled in ways we really don’t understand,” said Han Lin, China country director in Shanghai for the Asia Group, a Washington consulting firm.

In the West, economies recovered quickly when households were freed from pandemic restrictions. Many workers had saved their paychecks while working from home and also socked away government assistance checks. When the threat from Covid receded, consumers began eating out again and snapped up airline tickets and hotel rooms.

China’s management of its pandemic economy has been completely different.

Ryan Lam, a 30-year-old marketer in Guangzhou, went out for several meals to celebrate the end to that city’s repeated lockdowns. But he is switching back to eating at home to save money. His goal is to put aside half his salary.

“Private companies have been cutting spending,” he said. “The pandemic is like a catalyst, making my worries worse.”

As recently as last spring, supply disruptions caused by regional lockdowns were the main problem facing China’s economy. But except for some high-profile cases — notably the giant Foxconn facility in Zhengzhou, which makes Apple iPhones and has lost revenue because of unrest by workers fed up with lockdowns — many companies have adapted to “zero Covid.” Supply chain bottlenecks have eased, with freight container rates from Shanghai to the U.S. West Coast plummeting.

Understand the Protests in China

“Major companies are really back to normal operations as far as supply chains are concerned,” said Eric Zheng, the president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai. “They’re more concerned about consumer sentiment — people are less willing to spend.”

Then there is the continuing specter of health crises caused by Covid. Reopening in the West tended to happen after most of the population had been vaccinated with booster shots and highly effective mRNA vaccines, had caught the virus, or both. But that is not true in China.

Less than 1 percent of the population has been infected with Covid, according to official data. Most of the population has been vaccinated, but only with China’s domestic vaccines, which use an older technology that has been found through testing in other countries to be less effective. People over 80, who are most at risk, have the lowest rate of vaccination.

Doctors in China predict that 80 or 90 percent of the country’s people could become infected in the coming weeks and months — a wave of illness that may make consumers reluctant to go out and spend money.

A Covid testing booth in Shanghai. Doctors in China predict that 80 or 90 percent of the country’s people could become infected in the coming weeks and months.

Credit...Qilai Shen for The New York Times

Many storefront businesses have closed, leaving fewer places for anyone to spend money anyway.

A few of China’s most famous shopping streets, like Nanjing Road in Shanghai, are still lined with the elegant plate glass window displays of international brands. But a short walk away, many of the storefronts are now boarded up — and in a sprawling mall across the Huangpu River, long rows of shops have already shut down.

Households in China also don’t have a lot of free cash to spend. The United States, Hong Kong and various European governments supported consumer spending during the first two years of the pandemic by sending out large checks or providing generous assistance to the unemployed. That helped many families build up their savings.

Not China. Except for a few small municipal programs, which distributed coupons for local spending, the Chinese government did not distribute supplemental payments to households. Beijing preferred instead to spend heavily on infrastructure construction and on industrial subsidies — policies that benefited Communist Party constituencies in local governments and state-owned companies.

China’s government pressured businesses not to lay off workers. But overtime hours disappeared, wiping out what is often half or more of a paycheck. And many companies stopped hiring. Youth unemployment is nearly 20 percent.

Xi Jinping, China’s top leader, called this week for more economic stimulus and a loose monetary policy, effectively telling the central bank, the People’s Bank of China, to keep injecting money into the financial system. That would make it easier for companies and home buyers to borrow. But corporate demand for loans has been weak, while a nationwide problem of insolvent property developers and unfinished apartments has pummeled home sales.

Chinese households have two-thirds or more of their savings tied up in real estate and fairly little in the stock market — an unusual allocation by international standards and making them less likely to profit from central bank stimulus the way many families in the United States did.

The bank deposits of Chinese families rose somewhat during the pandemic because they were spending less than usual, said Louise Loo, an economist in the Singapore office of Oxford Economics. But households deposited much of that money into higher-interest bank accounts that restrict withdrawals for months or even years, making it hard for families to spend more money even if they had the confidence to do so.

Living patterns for seniors are also different in China. That could further limit consumer spending in the months to come.

In Western countries and even in Hong Kong, many seniors live in nursing homes and other assisted-living arrangements, which limited visits during outbreaks of the virus. But multigenerational living is much more common in China. The presence of an older family member, often unvaccinated, is a formidable check on the ability of other family members to start dining out and spending money because of the potential for infection.

“It also means we might continue to see lockdowns in residential buildings,” said Ms. Loo.

One of the hardest-hit business sectors in China has been travel. Hotels have been practically empty as cities imposed stringent rules on intercity travel, forcing them to cut room rates in half or more to lure a few local residents for “staycations.” Domestic air and rail travel has fallen steeply, while international air travel has been almost completely shut down since March 2020.

It’s unclear when China might open its borders to international air travelers. A new policy on Wednesday to ease intercity movement may increase spending but also spread illness.

The Beijing municipal government has almost completely barred out-of-towners from visiting the city this autumn. Thousands of Beijing residents who left the city for family visits or work trips also found themselves unable to return. But despite that precaution, Beijing has experienced one of China’s largest surges in infections in recent weeks. The end to restrictions on intercity travel will allow residents of Beijing, one of China’s two most affluent cities, along with Shanghai, to spend money elsewhere, but at the risk of spreading Covid to other cities.

The issues facing the world’s second largest economy can be seen in the experience of business owner Gong Naimin. Mr. Gong has a small factory that makes Christmas tree ornaments in Yiwu, a hub for light manufacturing and export logistics a four-hour drive southwest from Shanghai. His sales have faltered as customers, dealing with harsh Covid restrictions, stayed away.

So he has been hiring fewer workers. That is one small ripple in a nationwide wave of unemployment that has hurt sales for many companies, since his workers are also other companies’ customers.

With Christmas arriving soon, “the prime time is over,” he said. “Domestic demand is weak, and it’s too late to sell to foreign markets.”

Li You and Joy Dong contributed research.

Keith Bradsher is the Beijing bureau chief for The Times. He previously served as bureau chief in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Detroit and as a Washington correspondent. He was part of a team that won a Pulitzer in 2013 for its coverage of Apple, and he was a Pulitzer finalist in 1998 for his coverage of the dangers of sport utility vehicles. @KeithBradsher

Saving Indonesia's Capital

A Simple but Genius Plan for Jakarta

Jakarta is sinking into the sea and suffers from terrible congestion and a trash problem. The Indonesian government is building a new city in response. But one architect wants to save her home – and the idea could become a model for other cities threatened by the climate crisis.

By Maria Stöhr and Muhammad Fadli (Photos) in Jakarta

08.12.2022,

For our Global Societies project, reporters around the world will be writing about societal problems, sustainability and development in Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe. The series will include features, analyses, photo essays, videos and podcasts looking behind the curtain of globalization. The project is generously funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Officially, 10 million people live here in Jakarta on the island of Java. If the outer districts are included, the population is closer to 20 to 30 million. But this place that so many call home, the capital of Indonesia, the main city in a country made up of tens of thousands of islands and a total population of 270 million, is struggling to survive. There are too many people, there's too much traffic, there's garbage everywhere, the air is polluted – and then there's the climate crisis on top of that, with rising sea levels and unpredictable rains.

Northern Jakarta

On an early Monday morning in October, deep-sea fishermen are returning to the large industrial port in the north of the city after six months at sea. The men get out of boats painted in red and blue, they are wearing rubber boots and gloves, and cigarettes hang from their mouths. They unload frozen tuna, barracuda, blue marlin and spearfish.

Jakarta is a city where people have always lived with and from the water, from fishing, as sellers of dried mackerel, as workers in the shipyards. But the Indonesian government took too long to realize that water long ago ceased to be merely a source of survival and now poses a serious threat to the city.

Jakarta is located in a delta and its topography is flat, with around 40 percent of its area located below sea level. In recent decades, the city has grown rapidly, with twice as many people living there now as in 1975 – and the infrastructure hasn't kept up: Drinking water and sewage systems don't reach large parts of the population. The majority has no running water and thus uses pumps to access groundwater. The result is that the soil, muddy and soft already, subsides by 10 to 15 centimeters a year. At the same time, climate change is causing sea levels to rise. Some are predicting that 95 percent of North Jakarta could be below sea level by 2050. Along with other megacities in Southeast Asia, including Bangkok, Singapore, Manila and Saigon, Jakarta is one of the fastest sinking cities in the world.

The concrete flood wall has been in place for several years, and it has been raised three times already. Dams, large pumps and retention basins are being built. But they provide little more than a temporary solution.

For this story, we visited some of those most affected by the flooding and the transformation of Jakarta. We also met with people who no longer want to hear the predictions of the demise of their city and have instead set out to seek solutions.

The destruction caused by the water is clearly visible in Muara Baru, one of the oldest parts of the city, located in the north. The ground there is subsiding by up to 20 centimeters a year, and it is visible to the naked eye when walking through the streets and alleyways. Older buildings are now often more than a meter lower than newer buildings, with stairs leading down to their front doors. What was once the first floor has slid down into the earth to become a basement level. Every year, when the rains come, the water here is up to two meters deep in the apartments, with the most recent flooding hitting the area in early November. Because of the constant threat of high water, many people place their refrigerators and electrical appliances on stools, boards or small tables to keep them safe.

Jakarta is crisscrossed by more than 15 rivers and canals. The shacks of the poorest city residents are located directly on the rivers - and they are the first to be hit when waters rise.

Irma, 65, lives together with her daughter Ita, 36, in the Poncol neighborhood. Irma bought land directly on the Krukut River 15 years ago. At the time, she was aware that it would be prone to flooding. "But I couldn't afford anything else," she says. The neighborhood, with its narrow, trash-filled of alleyways - a place where monitor lizards and cats fight over scraps of food - is located directly across the river from the expensive Marriott Hotel.

The impoverished and the rich live in close proximity, but with one big difference: Modern buildings are much better protected from the floods.

Irma and Ita run an outdoor kiosk stand, where they sell spinach fried in oil and tempeh. Gado-gado, an Indonesian vegetable salad, costs 15,000 Indonesian rupiah, or about one euro. They sell their wares across to the other side of the river with the use of a rope hoist.

A severe flood struck in 2007, Ita recalls. In 2010, the water was two and a half meters high. It was also bad in 2021. In the past, the women say, the great flood came every five years. Now, one comes almost every year, sometimes two.

"We try to move all the electrical equipment to the second floor in time. But sometimes the flooding is faster. Then things get destroyed. Once, the water carried away a toddler, but luckily he survived."

"Afterward, we spend days shoveling the mud out of the apartment. The walls of the apartment are damp for weeks. The stench is terrible. We then often have diarrhea and skin rashes for two weeks."

There's a word that often comes up when you talk to the residents of Jakarta: Adaptation. "We have adapted," says Irma. "We're not leaving. Where else are we going to go?" A few kilometers from here, on the city's Ciliwung River, Augustine, 24, has her newborn baby in her arms. "We'll take it as it comes," she says. "If our home were dry, it would tend to confuse us, we've gotten so used to it."

The Ciliwung River carries water from the mountainous regions of Java. But rising sea levels are making it harder for water to drain into the sea and is causing it to back up in Jakarta. And into the huts on the banks of the river. Into Augustine's apartment.

The government has been threatening for years to demolish Augustine's home and to relocate residents to apartments on the outskirts of the city. Augustine doesn't want to move, despite the floods. She fears she won't be able to find any work on the outskirts, that she will be cut off. Not knowing when the government will send the excavators, Augustine lives in uncertainty.

"We used to wash our clothes in the river and drink the water," Augustine says. Now, the water is too dirty. We now only use it for fishing. The air is also bad. The city used to seem healthier to me."

Augustine isn't wrong: Jakarta's waters are polluted with feces and trash – everything is discarded into the water. Fishermen talk about how they used to go out with their small boats off the coast and come back every day with a catch of 20 kilos. Now, they say, they only catch three kilos on a good day.

And the problems don't stop with the water. The city is experiencing explosive growth and the traffic is highly congested, with around half the population commuting downtown to work each day. Many spend three or four hours a day in the car. Because of the traffic jams, some commuters have to start their journey in the middle of the night to make it to work on time. Expansion of the public transport system is underway, but the network is still so patchy that most people can't do without their cars.

This is also reflected in the poor air quality in the city. In June, Jakarta was ranked as having some of the worst air pollution in the world. Pollutant levels that cause asthma and skin diseases were 27 times greater in June than the limits set by the World Health Organization. In a landmark ruling last year, a Jakarta court ruled that the government was denying its citizens the right to clean air.

At what point does a city become uninhabitable? At what point do you have to leave?

"The burden on everyone who lives in Jakarta is high," says Sidik Purnomo, the spokesman for the New Capital Authority, the agency responsible for implementing an insane project: the construction of a new capital city.

Plans for the project have been on the drawing board for decades, but it is Joko Widodo, the current president, who has decided to take on the challenge. Nusantara is to be the name of the city, which will have 1.5 million inhabitants and will be located on the neighboring island of Borneo, where, unlike Jakarta, there are no earthquakes or floods.

Currently, heavy machinery is clearing managed forests on the island, though construction is lagging behind schedule. Still, Widodo has announced that the government will move in 2024, at which point Nusantara's city center should be completed.

In a café in Jakarta, Purnoma talks about renewable energies, particularly solar and wind technology, from which electricity will be drawn in Nusantara in the future. About sustainability and green parks. About how everything in the city should be accessible in 10 minutes by public transport. It sounds a bit like redemption from the unwieldy behemoth that Jakarta has become.

Critics argue that nature is being destroyed to build the city. They say the government is having trouble financing the construction, especially now, in times of crises and a decline in the currency exchange rate. They argue that President Widodo is just trying to create a monument for his legacy.

"Building a new capital doesn't do anything for the current capital city," says Elisa Sutanudjaja, an architect in Jakarta who criticizes the project for being elitist, saying that most of Jakarta's residents wouldn't move to the new city. "They will stay here. The government should be putting money in their hands." Initially, only around 200,000 people are expected to move to Nusantara. Given that an estimated 20 million people currently live in Jakarta, that would be only 1 percent of the population.

Sutanudjaja is one of the people who have no intention of leaving their home city. "We have to find creative solutions and adapt to the new realities," she says. There it is again: adapt.

It is Sutanudjaja's view that if you want to save the city, you have to start with the people who are most vulnerable to disasters. "These are the poor in the city," she says. The architect has demonstrated how this can be done with a housing project. In 2016, authorities cleared the Akuarium neighborhood in northern Jakarta and the residents were evicted to the outskirts of the city, where they were offered social housing. They reasoned that the old neighborhood had been too badly ravaged by flooding and that the shacks there had been built illegally.

But, the architect explains, people who have lived all their lives in tiny, single-story houses, people who are used to strong community structures in the heart of the city are going to have trouble adapting to isolated high-rise apartments that are lacking in communal spaces.

The architect protested together with local residents in front of the Presidential Palace against the evictions. She also presented a counterproposal: Together with the people affected, she planned apartment blocks, four stories each, with a total of 241 apartments. And they were to be located right at the location they were being evicted from – their old quarter.

"Yes, in the end, we also ended up building high-rise apartments," says Sutanudjaja. "But the difference was that we sat down together with the residents. We explained to them that their shacks wouldn't be good places to live in the future because of the floods." She says she had to use language that people understand to describe climate change and the effect it has on their lives. Because few people here are aware of why the water is rising ever higher.

The buildings are built to withstand the floods and are built above flood levels. And they are organized communally, modeled on life in the old neighborhood. There are wide hallways where people can meet. One person has set up a kiosk shop in front of his apartment. Two mothers are sitting in front of their apartments with their children. There is a laundry facility for all residents on the ground floor as well as meeting rooms and a library. The construction costs were around $4 million, financed by a fund of real estate companies and foundations.

Everyone in the building has responsibilities for cleaning the communal areas. Sutanudjaja calls it the "vertical village." The residents are organized in a cooperative. They pay a small rent equivalent to about 10 euros a month, part of which goes to reserves to repair future flood damage to the buildings.

"Politicians need to understand that they can't make decisions over people's heads. Simply moving people somewhere else against their will won't work," says Sutanudjaja. "Jakarta, the neighborhoods, the quarters, it's all their city. They're at home here."

Video: Muhammad Fadli / DER SPIEGEL

If you ask Sutanudjaja if that can really exist – a future for Jakarta – she raises her voice. "The people in Jakarta aren't victims," she says. "They are resilient, adaptable and they learn."

Then she adds that the things that work with her small-scale housing project are also possible in Jakarta on a larger scale. And in other places around the world. She says people have to be told in clear language what they are facing as a result of the climate crisis. They need to be pulled into dialogue. What do we do about it? What can we still prevent? And where do we need to respond? After that, people can get to work on a solution.

This piece is part of the Global Societies series. The project runs for three years and is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.