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ndonesia’s target of cutting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 29 percent by 2030 appears ever-more unrealistic as the government continues to push the use of coal for the foreseeable future to meet skyrocketing electricity demand.

In the past five years, the energy supply mix for power plants has been dominated by coal, followed by natural gas and oil. This supply-mix development has significantly increased GHG emissions from energy producers and industry.

The country’s increasing dependence on coal is shown by the use of coal in electricity generation, which has more than doubled since 2012, increasing by 81 percent since 2002, reaching 195.9 TWh.

Indonesia’s dependence on coal, coupled with rising energy consumption in Indonesia, will drive the energy sector to overtake deforestation as the largest carbon-emission contributor in Indonesia.

In 2010, energy consumption contributed 400 million tons of CO2. By 2020, the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas) predicts it will double to 800 million tons. And by 2045, it will more than quadruple to 1.7 billion tons.

On the other hand, carbon emissions from agriculture, forestry and other land use as well as peat decomposition and peat fires amounted to 900 million tons in 2010 and is predicted to decrease to 760 million tons in 2020 and reach 1.14 billion tons by 2045.

“While in the past, the largest emissions came from forest fires, in the future the largest portion will be from the energy sector. And if we further break it down, the majority of it will come from coal,” said Jarman, the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry’s electricity director-general.

Despite that, the country’s dependence on coal is showing no sign of abating. In mid-2015, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo announced a target of increasing electricity generation by 35 gigawatts by 2019. Approximately 20 GW of the target will be met from coal-fired sources, with 13 GW from natural gas-fired plants and 3.7 GW from renewable sources (primarily hydroelectricity and geothermal).

This coal dependence has steadily depleted the country’s coal reserves, so much so that the country will struggle to provide the coal required to fire its power stations in the near future. “Our coal reserves amount to 8.3 billion tons. Most likely we will run out of coal by 2036. It means if you build your 35 GW [power stations], we won’t have enough coal to supply you,” Indonesian Coal Mining Association (APBI) chairman Pandu Sjahrir said.

He was citing a study conducted by the APBI together with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Indonesia.

Despite the warning, the energy ministry insists that coal is still the most economically viable energy option for now. “For power plants, coal still has the best prospect because it’s the most readily available and we already have the technology. Furthermore, the construction [of coal-powered plants] doesn’t take long, just five years. So whether you like it or not, the most readily available option is coal,” the ministry’s electricity technique and environment director, Munir Ahmad, said.

While the government continues its dependence on coal, it has been trying to reduce the emissions from coal-fired power plants by developing clean-coal technology in the form of supercritical or fluidized bed coal power plants.

The clean-coal technology could reduce CO2 emissions by 35 percent compared to existing technology.

According to Indonesia’s Biennial Update Reports (BUR), which contain the latest information on the country’s climate change mitigation progress, the country has established a total capacity of 1,475 megawatts in supercritical coal power plants.

“The government requires power plants with a capacity of more than 600 MW to use supercritical technology,” Jarman said.

Meanwhile, to answer the coal scarcity problem, the government is mulling the development of underground coal mining, according to Munir. “The development of underground coal mining has to be discussed now because most coal is still mined on the surface,” he said.

Another option is to develop mine-mouth power plants, Munir added.

“We still have lots of mine-mouth coal that we can’t sell to other countries but we can use for our electricity,” he said.