Indonesia has continued to fall short of its annual RE targets. — The Jakarta Post
JAKARTA: Indonesia has pushed back its peak emissions target by five years to 2035, prompting officials to raise doubts over the country’s ability to reach net zero by 2060.
Peak emissions refers to the time when greenhouse gas output hits its highest level before starting to decline.
The Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry’s renewable energy (RE) director general, Eniya Listiani Dewi, said the government had made efforts to prevent the setback.
“While we all agreed to achieve net-zero emissions by 2060, we have to report with a heavy heart that our peak emissions target has shifted to 2035,” Eniya said on Monday, as quoted by Kumparan.
The change, she added, would make it more difficult for the country to reach carbon neutrality by 2060.
The updated target would be reflected in Indonesia’s updated Nationally Determined Contribution, which is to be presented at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Belém, Brazil, next month.
Eniya emphasised the need for accelerated collaboration with international partners and the adoption of new technologies to curb national emissions.
These efforts were outlined in Ministerial Regulation No. 10/2025 on the country’s energy transition road map.
“This road map ensures that all our energy resources can be optimised to reduce emissions,” she said, adding that the regulation also covers the early retirement of coal-fired power plants and opens up more room for the development of RE sources, including nuclear.
However, she acknowledged ongoing challenges in expanding RE, particularly in green transmission and smart grid development.
“RE in our total mix is now 16%. The 23% target has not been reached, but thankfully it rose by two digits within a year.”
South-East Asia’s largest economy has committed to cutting carbon emissions by relying less on coal and more on renewable sources of energy, but progress has been slow.
Indonesia has continued to fall short of its annual RE targets, with the latest share rising only modestly to around 16% in 2025 from 14.68% in 2024 and 13.1% in 2023.
The lagging progress has prompted the government to revise downward its RE target, cutting the share of renewables in the national electricity mix from the initial 23% by 2025 to between 17% and 19% in 2025.
State-owned utility company PLN has set its sights on RE contributing 34.3% of the national energy mix by the end of 2034, as reflected in the electricity business plan (RUPTL) for 2025 to 2034.
The new RUPTL assumes the economy will grow by 8% annually by the end of 2029, which officials hope will translate into a surge in power demand at roughly the same pace.
PLN plans to create an additional 42.6GW of new and renewable power capacity between 2025 and 2034.
That is equivalent to 61% of the planned 69.5GW of additional electricity capacity over the next decade.
“The RUPTL was delayed by more than six months because we wanted to ensure that RE takes up a much larger portion,” Eniya said.
The company will also add more fossil fuel power plants, according to the RUPTL, including 10.3GW from gas and 6.3GW from coal. — The Jakarta Post/ANN
