[Jakarta, 23 October 2025] The government, through the Ministry of Environment, held a consultation on Indonesia’s Second Nationally Determined Contribution (SNDC) on Thursday, 23 November 2025, in Jakarta. The event was more appropriately described as a socialization of the SNDC rather than a consultation, as the public did not have a fair and meaningful opportunity to participate in the drafting of the SNDC that will be submitted ahead of the Conference of the Parties (COP)30 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), scheduled for 10–21 November 2025.
“Public aspirations cannot possibly be reflected if the public is not even given access to the document. Participation processes should take place before decisions are made, not merely during a formal consultation,” said Nadia Hadad, Coordinator of the Lobby Team of the JustCOP Coalition and Executive Director of MADANI Berkelanjutan.
The JustCOP Coalition observed that the public had difficulty accessing the SNDC document until the event was finally held. The government should have provided access and involved the public from the outset of the discussion and drafting of the SNDC as a form of commitment and responsibility in addressing the climate crisis. Public participation is essential to ensure social and ecological justice for the wider community, not only for a select few.
In terms of substance, the SNDC document presented by the Ministry of Environment contains various weaknesses. In the energy sector, although Indonesia has stated certain emission reduction figures, the electricity development plan still includes the construction of coal-fired power plants totaling 6.3 gigawatts (GW) on-grid and 20 GW off-grid, as well as an additional 10.3 GW of gas-fired power plants. This indicates that, even under the most ambitious renewable energy development scenario, Indonesia’s emission reduction targets will be difficult to achieve.
“Therefore, the SNDC presented can be seen more as a formal step and an exercise in image-building, which will most likely serve merely as a marker in international forums such as the Climate COP in Brazil in mid-November,” said Iqbal Damanik, a member of the JustCOP Coalition and Climate and Energy Manager at Greenpeace Indonesia.
The SNDC document also shows that the government has sidelined the nickel downstream sector and other hard-to-abate industries such as steel from decarbonization obligations. This approach demonstrates that emission reduction targets have not been fully mainstreamed into development strategies, but are instead being compromised for the sake of an 8% economic growth ambition. In fact, these sectors contribute significantly to national aggregate emissions and are key to determining the direction of a just energy transition. This move indicates that the Indonesian government has virtually no alternative pathways to reduce carbon emissions while simultaneously fostering high-quality economic growth.
Bhima Yudhistira, a member of the JustCOP Coalition and Executive Director of the Center of Economic and Law Studies (CELIOS), assessed that the government has failed to understand the concept of economic development. According to him, synergy between industrial decarbonization, the development of a restorative economy, and the energy transition could reduce carbon emissions while also creating jobs, controlling inflation, and encouraging value creation across various sectors. “Unfortunately, the government continues to rely on economic growth driven by extractive sectors. It is therefore quite strange to assume that after 2030 carbon emissions would suddenly decline. That is a roadmap that is impossible to implement,” Bhima concluded.
