“We stand ready to partner and create win-win opportunities to help both Indonesian government and companies not only achieve their energy efficiency targets but also create jobs,” visiting US Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke told journalists on Wednesday after a luncheon meeting with the American Chamber of Commerce on the sideline of his two-day visit to Jakarta.

Locke was accompanied by a delegation, which included representatives of US economic and trade agencies such as the US Export Import Bank, Overseas Private Investment Corporation, Trade Development Agency, Foreign Commercial Service and ten American clean energy companies.

“We are eager to do more businesses in Indonesia because it’s a place, a country that has the potential to be one of the world’s leading producers and users of clean energy,” he said.

He said that in the list of global pressing challenges, energy was certainly at the top because it would shape the fate of the planet, its economies and nations.

He said that by mid-century, global energy use would double, theoretically needing two new 1,000 MW power plants every week for the next 30 years to meet the increasing energy demand.

“The new energy generation has to be clean to avoid catastrophic climate change. It should also be affordable to keep our economy growing,” he said.

He said the Obama administration had done more in mitigate climate change by investing more in clean energy than any other US president in history.

“It has allocated US$30 billion in clean energy investment and established top new efficiency standards for automobile, appliances and customer electronics,” he said, while praising Indonesia’s efforts in developing clean energy.

Indonesia, he said, had set greatly desirous energy efficiency targets in terms of reducing its greenhouse gas emission by 26 percent by 2020, even 41 percent reduction with foreign assistance, and would double its renewable energy from the current 7 percent to 15 percent by 2025.

“They are very, very ambitious goals,” he said, referring to the goals stated by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in the sidelines of the G20 summit in Pittsburgh on Sept. 24 and 25, 2009. (ebf)

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