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View all search resultsA government promise to cut carbon emissions and reduce energy consumption looks set to fail, with reliance on coal and struggling initiatives to boost investment and research into renewable and alternative energy sources creating ongoing difficulties, a report shows
government promise to cut carbon emissions and reduce energy consumption looks set to fail, with reliance on coal and struggling initiatives to boost investment and research into renewable and alternative energy sources creating ongoing difficulties, a report shows.
The State Ministry for the Environment claims no new investments have been made into researching low-emission energy sources or building geothermal or hydropower energy power plants.
"Coal will remain the main source of energy here," said Haneda Sri Mulyanto, head of the climate change mitigation unit at the ministry.
Burning coal for energy has been identified as the key contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, which contribute to global warming.
The 2006 presidential decree on national energy stated that by 2025, renewable energies - including biofuels, geothermal, nuclear and liquid coal - should make up at least 17 percent of all national energy used.
Indonesia did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol, and so was not bound to any emission-reduction targets. The government did, however, make a commitment to increase the usage of renewable and alternative energies while cutting back on emissions by nearly 20 percent.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and State Minister for the Environment, Rachmat Witoelar, announced Indonesia's energy commitment to the international community at last year's G8 meeting in Japan.
Due to Indonesia's heavy reliance on fossil fuels, by 2003 the country was responsible for releasing nearly 260 million tons of emissions into the atmosphere.
Less than 0.2 percent of all energy usage was sourced from renewable sources.
The 2009 report by the National Council for Climate Change shows that the power sector emitted around 120 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) in 2005, more than 75 percent of which was caused by burning coal.
Data from the report said the release of emissions was expected to grow seven-fold as the rapid demand for coal-fired power continued to grow, reaching 750 million tons by 2030.
The use of clean-coal technologies could abate around 6.1 million tons of CO2 emissions, the report stated.
"The problem is that wealthy nations are still reluctant to invest in clean-coal technologies in Indonesia," Haneda said.
He said the government had also unveiled plans to build a 10,000 megawatt coal-fired power plant, but no recent developments had been made.
The DNPI report also said the increase in clean and renewable energies could cut more than 165 million tons of CO2 emissions by 2030.
Haneda said a sharp increase in the number of commercial and personal vehicles would present the country with its biggest challenge cutting emissions.
"Currently, only a few oil and gas stations sell biofuels in Indonesia," he said.
Projects looking into jatpropha as a potential energy crop have also failed to supply enough biofuels.
Emissions from the transport sector, he said, were expected to reach 500 million tons by 2030 if no improvements were made to transform energy usage, such as by employing vehicles running on electricity or hydropower.
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