- The Jakarta Post
INDONESIA’S Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Regulation No 10/2025, which lays out a road map for the energy transition of the electricity system, should have been a milestone moment: a blueprint to drive the country once and for all from coal into a renewables-based future.
On paper, it commits to cutting emissions, closing coal-fired power plants early and constructing transmission supergrids to transmit new clean power to expanding cities.
But reading between the lines, it becomes clear that this road map is not a reflection of a democratic plan but of a technical report governed by grand schemes, existing utilities and commercial agendas.
Perhaps most obviously, it does not have at its centre the very people who sit next to coal-fired power plants and mines, workers whose economic interests are bound up with fossil fuel corporations and communities around Indonesia who stand to win or lose the most.
This missing social justice lens is not merely a moral failure, it threatens to seize a historic moment of decision and turn it into yet another top-down, centralised policy making the same old familiar mistakes.
The policy is clothed in “just energy transition.” But in reality, it is based on justice as a tickbox rather than a principle shaping every step of decision-making.
Communities near coal power plants and mines are still among Indonesia’s most impacted by pollution and land conflict.
But there is no requirement in the roadmap for consultation of these communities prior to decision-making on early plant closure or new transmission corridors.
Land for new supergrid lines, power plants or energy hubs can and does occur without free, prior and informed consent. The regulation introduces no additional protection nor makes participatory planning institutionalised.
The decision-making itself remains thoroughly centralised: a joint working team dominated by ministries, state utilities and national experts. Local authorities, community and civil society are merely invited “as and when required” and not as equals.
A just transition to energy is meant to make sure that no community should bear a disproportionate cost. But the roadmap does not say much about how the financial shocks of shutting down coal plants will be lessened.
Hundreds of thousands of Indonesians are employed by coal mining, transportation and power generation.
Local livelihood and economies, especially in Sumatra, Kalimantan and Java, will be disrupted if these power plants are retired early.
The roadmap omits any mention of retraining programmes, economic diversification programs and incentives for the creation of jobs for impacted areas.
Substitute infrastructure
Instead, it invests heavily on building substitute infrastructure: nuclear power stations, green hydrogen hubs, carbon capture plants and supergrid transmission lines. These expenditures on capital are unlikely to provide much local, long-term work and never help the same communities that are destroyed by the decline of coal.
By contrast, decentralised technologies such as rooftop solar, community microgrids and local energy cooperatives can retain economic value within the community. But the roadmap largely neglected these decentralised options.
The most striking feature of the roadmap could be how well it takes care of the interests of investors.
Early closure coal-based plants are guaranteed compensation, funded by national and overseas funding. There are official processes for how financial arrangements must be secured and by whom lenders and investors can examine plans.
On the other hand, there are no corresponding provisions to offer compensation or assistance to coal-affected communities, those who, over generations, have paid the cost of pollution, displacement and worsening health. The difference is stark: economic risk is well cared for by companies, while social risk is largely neglected for citizens.
The strategy also depends significantly on technologies such as carbon capture and storage and ammonia co-firing, which would prolong the lifespan of coal-fired plants instead of being replaced by cleaner, greener alternatives.
Environmental risks
This prolongs profits for incumbents, but communities continue to live with emissions and environmental risks.
The policy forecasts reductions of emissions at the national level, peaking in 2037 and plateauing at zero in 2059. But it says nothing about how these reductions will be distributed geographically.
Absence of transparency
Coal-heavy communities, already drowning in air pollution and disease, must still bear the disproportionate brunt of the transition, as cities get to enjoy access to new clean supply. This absence of transparency denies citizens the information needed to challenge unjust decisions or advocate for fairer results.
The Indonesian energy transition must be about something greater than constructing new facilities or hitting national targets. It has to address past grievances, avoid the perpetuation of new injustices and actively engage with citizens who were excluded from energy planning for centuries.
The roadmap, as it stands, risks deepening old inequalities under a green banner. Indonesia can still change course: to put social justice at the centre of its transition, not at the margins. —The Jakarta Post/ANN
Igg Maha Adi is Bertha Challenge Fellow 2024 and chairman of Greenpress Indonesia. The views expressed here are the writer’s own.
