Indonesia has a deal to get off coal. But it's building new coal plants
The U.S. helped broker a $20 billion deal to transition Indonesia to renewables from coal. International observers are excited, but inside Indonesia, there are doubts about the deal.
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Can a $20 billion bet wean Indonesia off coal?
Less than a year after it was announced, a $20-billion bet to wean Indonesia off coal is mired in controversies over financing and the construction of new plants to power industry. The Just Energy Transition Partnership for Indonesia was unveiled last November and follows a model first trialed in South Africa, with rich countries pledging funds for the developing world's energy transition.
A plan for how Indonesia will spend $20 billion to transition to cleaner energy has been submitted
A plan for how Indonesia will spend $20 billion to transition to cleaner energy was submitted Wednesday to the government and its financing partners, the planners said. Indonesia's Just Energy Transition Partnership deal was announced last year and aims to use the funds over the next three to five years to accelerate retirement of the nation's coal plants and development of renewable energy.
Just Energy Transition Partnerships and How They Work
To limit the damage caused by climate change, the world needs to rapidly reduce carbon dioxide emissions everywhere, not just in rich countries. To get there, poor and middle-income places will require trillions of dollars for replacing coal plants with cleaner energy, improving electrical grids and retraining workers, among other measures. Just Energy Transition Partnerships, or JETPs, are among the most high-profile financing mechanisms designed to funnel money from wealthy economies to some of the bigger developing-world emitters for the purpose of weaning off fossil fuels. South Africa signed the first agreement in 2021, and a handful of others are getting off the ground, including in Indonesia. But the process has been slow and politically fraught, raising the question of whether such flagship plans can be inclusive, effective and timely enough to fulfill their promise.
Decoder: Can Indonesia bid farewell to coal?
Across the wide bay, past wooden fishing boats, a large column of smoke rises against a backdrop of tree-covered mountains as it has done 24 hours a day for the best part of a decade. In another decade or so, the flames that produce that endless plume at the coal-fired power plant in the small fishing port of Pelabuhan Ratu in western Indonesia will finally be extinguished.