S

ignaling its commitment to contribute to the global effort of combating climate change, Indonesia is set to ratify the Paris Agreement, which will guide a national plan to meet its targets in carbon cuts.

The government said the ratification, which is set to be passed into law by the House of Representatives on Wednesday, will make measures taken to reach emission goals easier to measure, especially the development of low-emission power plants.

Environment and Forestry Minister Siti Nurbaya Bakar said Indonesia will benefit from the agreement’s strong emphasis on principles of cooperation.

The country’s national and regional environmental policies will be affected by the ratification.

“Land use policy, especially forest and peatland allocation policy, has to be prudent with sustainability principles,” she said.

To date, the Paris Agreement, which has resulted in a global commitment to reduce emissions, has been ratified by 81 nations representing 60 percent of global emissions.

The Paris Agreement will enter into force on Nov. 4, 30 days after the threshold for entry into force was achieved by at least 55 countries.

Indonesia has already committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions 29 percent below business-as-usual projections by 2030 or 41 percent if it receives international aid.

The government has long voiced its desire to benefit from the flow of international climate finance, especially in the Green Climate Finance (GCF), which is a multilateral financing mechanism for climate change within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

By ratifying the agreement, Siti said the country is expecting improved efforts through international funding, which will be used to develop low-emission energy, which requires large investments to initiate.

Energy consumption in Indonesia has been predicted to raise exponentially due to population growth and dependence on fossil fuels and will be a major carbon emission contributor right beside deforestation, with energy overtaking deforestation as the largest carbon emission contributor as early as 2020.

The country is estimated to have about 28 gigawatts in geothermal potential and 75 gigawatts in hydropower potential to general electricity. The estimated total potential of renewable energy is estimated to reach more than 300,000 megawatts. Indonesia still relies on fossil fuel to meet its electricity demand.

In 2015, 55.9 percent of electricity generation was fueled by coal, 25.7 percent by gas and 8.5 percent by diesel fuel. Renewable energy, like hydropower and geothermal energy only make up the remaining 9.9 percent of electricity generation, according to state-owned electricity company PLN data.

The government is planning to shift from dirty fossil fuel to clean renewable energy by targeting to increase electrification from renewable energy to 25 percent.

However, the government’s commitment to renewable energy has been questioned as it recently lowered the percentage of electricity targeted to be generated by renewable energy by 2025 to 19.6 percent from the initial goal of 25 percent.

The government has also decided to put the brakes on efforts to push the use of renewable energy in electricity procurement as it plans hefty cuts to state spending in the energy sector, with the biggest share to be taken from new and renewable energy.

At the same time, the government plans to add some 117 coal-fired power plants (PLTUs) to meet its ambitious target of installing 35,000 MW of electricity by 2019.

“We can see that the expansion of coal power plants is massive, with 60 percent of the 35,000 MW coming from coal. If we’re talking about our future carbon emissions, we can only imagine how much carbon comes from our coaldependency,” Greenpeace Indonesia head of climates Hindun Mulaika said.