Dear Honourable Dr. Agus Justianto,
Director General of Sustainable Forest Management of the Ministry of Environment and Forestry (KLHK)
Contact: agusjustianto@yahoo.com
Indonesia Ministry of Forest: pusdata@dephut.cbn.net.id
My name is Netra Naik. I am the Country Manager for Indonesia for Climate Scorecard, a non-profit organization that monitors leading greenhouse gas-emitting countries’ climate policies and programs.
Based on a review of Indonesia’s policies, we believe that there is much that can be done to increase your country’s climate ambition, achieve the global goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2030, and become carbon neutral by 2050. Therefore, we suggest you adopt the following goals and announce these goals at COP28.
# 1 Indonesia Announces It Will Strengthen Its Paris Agreement Pledge: As of 2022, Indonesia had pledged to achieve a target reduction of 31.89% unconditionally, that is a target of 1805 MtCO2e excluding the land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF) sector emissions by 2030. We suggest that you announce a revision of this and related targets at COP 28. We suggest that you announce that by 2030, Indonesia will reduce its emissions by 50% with assistance from international partnerships, including the LULUCF sector and become carbon neutral by 2050. This goal can be achieved by increasing the renewable energy mix to around 40% by 2030 instead of 2050, as stated in the 2050 Long Term Low Carbon and Climate Resilience Strategy (LTS-LCCR). Indonesia has a huge renewable energy potential such as solar (3.295 GW), hydro (95 GW), bioenergy (57 GW), wind farm (115 GW), geothermal (24 GW), and tidal (60 GW). Still, the renewable energy utilization is only 12.56 GW as of December 2022. In addition, Indonesia can commit to zero deforestation and zero conversion of peatlands into agricultural lands by 2030 by increasing vigilance on forest clearing permits and illegal deforestation activity.
# 2 Indonesia Announces It Will End the Production of Fossil Fuels by 2050.
This target seems farfetched and can accelerate global warming at an unprecedented rate. Coal still accounts for around 40% of the country’s grid electricity, and new coal power plant constructions are still being undertaken for industrial purposes. According to the International Energy Agency report, in the first six months of 2023, Indonesia’s coal production grew by 16% (353Mt). While the Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP) sounds promising in financially supporting the coal phase-out, more effort is required to support the earlier retirement of coal power plants by 2030. One of the ways could be by shortening the commercial operation of coal plants to a maximum of 25-30 years rather than a typical span of 40-60 years. Furthermore, limiting new and downstream coal plants that power nickel smelters for EV battery manufacture and shifting to alternative energy sources can help scale up efforts to phase out fossil fuel production. Moreover, the clean energy transition targets should be protected with stringent coal plant closure rules, and penalties should be charged for new coal power plant constructions that do not have a sustainable phase-out strategy. We are assured that the new presidential decree PR112 that bans new coal plant construction is a positive way forward but also would require greater monitoring and transparency to achieve emission reduction targets earlier in the 2030s rather than the 2040s or 50s.
I hope you will incorporate these suggestions in your presentation at COP28, and I look forward to hearing back from you.
Sincerely,
Netra Naik
Climate Scorecard Indonesia Country Manager