President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo hosted visiting UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss at the Merdeka Palace on Thursday, in which they discussed a follow-up to the former’s meeting with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on the margins of the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Scotland earlier this month.

Topping the President’s list of strategic cooperation with the UK was a collaboration between the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) to establish a carbon market exchange, which would help realize one of Indonesia’s key COP26 priorities of utilizing the globally divisive carbon trading mechanism.

The two sides also broached the topic of a joint investment to develop cathode production technologies in the UK to meet local and European demand for lithium-ion batteries.

“Indonesia will provide the necessary precursors from Indonesian factories built via our joint investment," Jokowi said in a statement, adding that he would send a technical team to hash out the plan in detail.

Truss also had a separate meeting with Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi to discuss various bilateral issues as well as progress on the Indonesia-UK strategic partnership, which was only established in 2012.

Most notably, Retno stressed that Indonesia did not want to be trapped in rhetoric and would much prefer to “walk the talk” in following up on the COP26 climate talks.

“In this regard, the statement of President Widodo during the [COP26 Forestry and Land Use] meeting was very clear. The President among others mentioned that Indonesia aims to transform its forest and land-use sector into a net carbon sink by 2030. This is Indonesia’s commitment to be part of the solution,” she stated.

Read also: UK, Indonesia lead global efforts to increase sustainable trade and protect forests

The nation caught unwanted international attention after critics accused Environment and Forestry Minister Siti Nurbaya Bakar of diluting the importance of aiming for zero deforestation by 2030 after she said Indonesia’s development agenda “should not be stopped for the sake of reducing carbon emissions or deforestation”.

Part of the government’s strategy involves what it deems “sustainable forest management”, in which plans for the transformation of its forestry sector are earmarked to provide significant contributions to emissions reduction efforts, even though in practical terms the country still stands to lose up to 450,000 hectares of its forested areas annually.

Proponents have reasoned that unlike advanced economies, most of whom also grossly exploited their natural resources before environmental protections were put in place, Indonesia still needs to intensively develop itself to be able to reach its economic potential.

Meanwhile, the planet is on track to reach dangerous levels of global warming, which would wreak serious environmental havoc first on countries like Indonesia.

Indonesia also wanted more incentives from the UK for its efforts to enact sustainable timber governance under the Voluntary Partnership Agreement on Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade (FLEGT-VPA) cooperation, Retno said. The cooperation is aimed at halting the trade of illegal timber and ensuring only verified legal timber and timber products can be exported.

“We agreed to encourage progress of the Joint Economic and Trade Committee (JETCO) to discuss the possibility of establishing free or limited trade deals and promote mutual recognition of standards and certification,” she said.

Read also: Indonesia, UK talk closer Indo-Pacific cooperation in health, defense, trade

The minister also presented Indonesia’s plans to her UK counterpart for its yearlong Group of 20 presidency, which includes support for stronger global health architecture and energy transitions, on top of delving into regional issues including situations in Myanmar and Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, Truss said the UK government was keen to have more investments in Indonesia, particularly in the green economy and green energy sectors.

“We've been discussing infrastructure. We've been discussing life sciences. There is a huge potential pipeline of investments to Indonesia that both the UK government and the UK private sector is keen to support,” she said.

One part of the road map for closer cooperation, she said, was on the digital economy and technology. Truss also emphasized that Indonesia and the UK needed to make sure “that technology standards are shaped by the free world”.

“We want to work together with Indonesia in areas like cyber, and also the next generation of technologies, whether that's 5G, 6G or indeed areas like artificial intelligence and quantum,” she said in a statement.

Cooperation with the UK has picked up ever since Brexit, with UK interests zoning in on regions like Southeast Asia to cushion the break from the European Union.

The two countries are already working together closely in the security and defense sectors, including in the manufacturing of UK-designed frigate warships, which will begin next year in Surabaya, East Java.

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