Half-hearted Indonesian Climate Policy and Action

Jakarta, 30 January 2024 – The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has declared 2023 as the hottest year. Historical records show that the earth’s temperature continues to increase from year to year. To keep the earth’s temperature rise to no more than 1.5 degrees, experts have recommended ensuring the world reaches peak global emissions in 2030 and must fall in the following years.

The use of fossil energy is one of the largest contributors to emissions in the world. Executive Director of the Institute for Essential Services Reform (IESR), Fabby Tumiwa, said that Indonesia needs measurable and real action for transitioning away from fossil energy.

“Based on the Climate Action Tracker (CAT) assessment, Indonesia has not shown a reduction in emissions, in fact it will experience an increase in emissions in 2022 and one of the causes is an increase in coal consumption used for down streaming. Indonesia’s rating even dropped from ‘highly insufficient’ to ‘critically insufficient’. The most important thing is real steps to accelerate the transition in this decade,” emphasized Fabby.

Indonesia, as one of the top 10 emitting countries in the world, actually received a bad record with Indonesia’s climate ranking dropping to the lowest level according to the Climate Action Tracker (CAT) assessment framework.

Delima Ramadhani, IESR Climate Policy Project Coordinator, said at the launch of the Climate Action Tracker report that throughout 2023, Indonesia has delivered a number of initiatives and policies that normatively support the acceleration of the energy transition, but this does not have implications for efforts to reduce emissions.

“Indonesia’s rating dropped from ‘highly insufficient’ to ‘critically insufficient’. ‘Critically insufficient’ means that if countries have climate commitments like Indonesia, the rate of global warming will be at the level of 4 degrees,” said Delima.

Mustaba Ari Suryoko, Intermediate Policy Analyst, Coordinator of the Aneka EBT Program Preparation Working Group, responded that the assessment of emissions reduction efforts is a reminder for all parties to continue working to achieve emissions reduction targets.

“Achievement number figures are an accumulation of various variables, so we hope that in planning we will not only determine ambitious targets but also make efforts to achieve them,” he said.

Anna Amalia, Functional Intermediate Planner at the Ministry of National Development Planning (Bappenas), said that to pursue Indonesia’s more ambitious climate targets there are several opportunities.

“The government is starting to move progressively, in the next 20 years we will have a RPJP (National Long Term Development Plan-ed) which focuses on reducing GHG emissions, how we encourage economic growth through low emission corridors and of course other policies will follow,” Anna said.

The annual Climate Transparency report also includes an Implementation Check Report to see the effectiveness of climate policy implementation.

Akbar Bagaskara, IESR’s Power Sector Analyst, explained that Indonesia’s electricity sector is in the medium category because the implementation of policies that support the transition in the electricity sector has not been effective.

“Historically, in the last five years we never achieved our annual renewable energy target. We need to strengthen policies to strengthen Indonesia’s renewable energy enabling environment, as well as involving various groups in the planning, procurement and evaluation processes,” explained Akbar.

Yosi Amelia, Forest & Climate Program Officer, Yayasan Madani Berkelanjutan, highlighted the lack of synchronization of strategies across ministries and government agencies which created unclear documents that should be treated as guidelines.

“There are inconsistencies between documents, for example regarding Indonesia’s deforestation quota. In the FOLU Net Sink 2030 strategy, there are no longer deforestation quotas, while the E-NDC still provides deforestation quotas,” said Yosi.

Communities Build Sustainability-Based Businesses

Cirebon, 26 January 2024 – On the fourth day, the West Java Energy Exploration team continued their journey to Cirebon. Precisely in South Kesunean, Kasepuhan Village, Lemahwungkuk District. There, the group moved towards the shoreline to plant mangroves. South Kesunean has one problem, namely the emerging soil phenomenon. This raised land appears due to the accumulation of rubbish on the shoreline which is compacted to form new land.

This habit of residents threatens a mangrove ecosystem which functions to resist sea abrasion. For approximately one year, a group of Kesunean residents took the initiative to form a Working Group (Pokja) to care for the mangrove area located in their area.

The West Java Energy Exploration group visited the Kesunean mangrove area to participate in planting mangroves as an effort to restore mangrove forests.

Pepep Nurhadi, Chair of RW 09 South Kesunean, as well as chair of the South Kesunean Mangrove Working Group (Pokja), said that the presence of mangroves in South Kesunean plays an important role in preventing flooding and abrasion as well as protecting coastal ecosystems.

“For this reason, we thank all parties who have supported us in this mangrove planting effort. “We hope that in the future our area can become an ecotourism area so that it can be more beneficial for local residents,” he said.

 

Karya Nugraha Jaya Cooperative Pioneers Sustainable Dairy Farm:

People and communities continue to look for ways to use renewable energy technology. In the landscape of micro businesses and cooperatives, community groups such as the Karya Nugraha Jaya Producers Cooperative strive to ensure that livestock operational processes can be clean and sustainable.

The Karya Nugraha Jaya Cooperative is a dairy farming cooperative located in Cipari Village, Cigugur District, Kuningan Regency, West Java, founded in 2004 and has around 4000 cows with a cooperative membership of 100 farmers. This cooperative is motivated to organize clean and sustainable livestock farming.

Iding Karnadi, Chairman of the Karya Nugraha Jaya Cooperative, said that the first thing that was initiated was the installation of a biogas reactor to process cow dung waste.

“Initially, dairy cow dung was an environmental problem, apart from being dirty, it also smelled bad. Finally, we collaborated with ITB to create this biogas installation,” he said.

The biogas installation was finally installed with a production capacity of 100 m3 of gas per day. The gas produced is used for electricity needs for water heating on farms. It doesn’t stop there, the Karya Nugraha Jaya Cooperative also installed hybrid solar panel installations on farms and feed factories amounting to 56 kWp.

“For the feed factory, we currently fully use electricity from PLTS amounting to 40 kWp, no longer using electricity from PLN,” said Iding.

Iding then continued that his party continues to look at other opportunities to make its livestock cooperatives more advanced and adopt more sustainable practices. Currently, the party is collaborating with ITB to treat livestock wastewater. In the future, the management of this cooperative hopes that the location of this cooperative will become an educational tourist attraction about Sustainable Dairy Farms.