There is no question that President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo and former Jakarta governor and presidential hopeful Anies Baswedan could have done better, and sooner, to mitigate this chronic problem. They are both culpable for the pervasive smog choking the capital, which has affected more than 12,000 people and killed at least 10,000 every year, according to a 2023 study.

But we argue that the core issue goes beyond the question of technocratic competence. It is closely related to the fact that our body politic is currently colonized by powerful coal oligarchs who benefit from the use of dirty energy, which is mainly responsible for polluting the air we breathe.

Studies have shown that the coal-fired power plants surrounding Greater Jakarta contribute the most to the region’s worsening air quality.

A 2020 report from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clear Air (CREA) show that Jakarta is surrounded by more than 100 high emitting industrial facilities in Banten and West Java. These include seven coal-fired power plants in Suralaya, Cilegon, deemed the most polluting industrial complex in Southeast Asia. According to the report, hazardous materials from these facilities can be carried on the wind as far as 100 kilometers away to reach Jakarta and contribute to the city’s high level of PM 2.5 and other pollutants.

Government officials have openly challenged that narrative.

West Java Governor Ridwan Kamil has claimed that the prevalent use of internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles contributed 75 percent to air pollution, while power plants contributed only 25 percent.

The Forestry and Environment Ministry has made a similar claim while refuting that smoke from Suralaya could travel all the way to Jakarta depending on the direction of the wind: The ministry’s data show that prevailing winds blow from east to west, away from Jakarta.

CREA researchers have accused the environment ministry of misrepresenting their findings. Smoke from Suralaya polluted Jakarta primarily during the wet season, while the city was choked by emissions from coal plants in the east like in Cikarang, West Java, during the dry season.

Regardless of which dataset is correct, there is no question that coal-fired power plants are part of the problem. The ministry has admitted that the energy industry is responsible for 31 percent of the hazardous materials polluting the city’s air.

Our deepest concern is whether our policymakers are capable of making an objective assessment of this critical issue and executing the necessary policies when many of them are linked to the coal industry.

It is telling that Ridwan made his questionable claim after a meeting with Maritime Affairs and Investment Minister Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan. Luhut, arguably the most powerful minister in the Jokowi administration, is linked to at least four coal businesses: PT Toba Bara Sejahtera, PT Adimitra Baratama Nusantara, PT Indomining and PT Kutai Energi.

It is no surprise that one of the solutions offered during that meeting was to require Jakarta officials to use electric vehicles, which are still heavily dependent on coal-fired power plants, the country’s largest source of electricity, to power charging stations. It is also worth noting that one of the companies linked to Luhut, PT Toba Energy, has joined forces with tech giant GoTo to produce electric motorcycles.

Luhut is not the only top official with ties to the coal industry.

Defense Minister and Gerindra Party chairman Prabowo Subianto is the beneficial owner of PT Batubara Nusantara Kaltim, a subsidiary of Nusantara Group that controls a 14,260 hectare-coal mine in East Kutai, East Kalimantan, according to the energy ministry’s database. Prabowo is now the front-runner in the 2024 presidential race, according to credible surveys.

Meanwhile, Tourism and Creative Economy Minister Sandiaga Uno owns investment firm PT Saratoga Investama Sedaya, which has investments in coal mining company PT Adaro Energy. Adaro Energy is owned by Garibaldi Thohir, the brother of State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) Minister Erick Thohir. Both Sandiaga and Erick have been touted as potential vice presidential candidates for the 2024 election.

A study on "coal-powered politics" (Jose Antonio Ordonez et al., 2020) has put a spotlight on the coal lobby’s influence among Indonesian policymakers, which it says is undermining the nation’s climate mitigation efforts.

“The successful implementation of climate mitigation policies in the energy sector,” the authors argue, will “depend on the extent to which concrete policies harm coal incumbents in the private and public sector, as well as the effectiveness of efforts to diminish the influence of the coal lobby on energy policy.”

Transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources is hard and costly, as many in the Global South are heavily reliant on nonrenewables. However, that process has been made even more difficult in Indonesia by the fact that coal-powered politicians are controlling the very state institutions tasked with leading the transition.

Luhut said the government had a plan ready to retire some coal plants early in a bid to tackle air pollution and carbon emissions, but claimed the plan had been delayed by the unclear financing terms of the Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP), coled by the United States and Japan.

Despite the JETP scheme, the government is still planning to build new coal power plants. A case in point is the recent decision by five local banks, including three state-owned banks BNI, BRI and Bank Mandiri, to finance the US$2 billion aluminum smelter project of PT Adaro Minerals Indonesia, the coal mining subsidiary of Adaro Energy, according to Market Forces, an Australian environmental NGO. The smelter project includes building new coal power plants in its early phase, which is why global banks have refused to finance it, reported The Financial Times.

It is hard to overlook the conflicts of interest involving SOEs minister Erick and Adaro owner Garibaldi, his brother.

As a counterpoint, it is encouraging that we are now seeing increasing public awareness about the dangers of air pollution and greater engagement in public discourse about its many causes in order to find the most effective solutions. But we need to be fully aware that any solution to this chronic problem can work only when our politics are free from the influence of the industry that is largely responsible for creating the problem in the first place.

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Ary Hermawan is editor-at-large and Kharishar Kahfi is a staff writer at The Jakarta Post.