indonesia

JAKARTA — Observers are calling for greater public participation and transparency in a $20 billion effort by Indonesia to move away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy, following the government’s failure to publish the plan for the phased transition in time. Under the Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP), signed in 2022, the G7 group […]

JAKARTA — Despite various commitments from global brands and the government to protect Indonesia’s Leuser Ecosystem, home to some of the rarest species on Earth, development of new palm oil plantations and drainage of carbon-rich peatlands continue in the ecosystem, a new investigation finds. At the same time, deforestation in Rawa Singkil Wildlife Reserve, a […]

JAKARTA — Critics have questioned the Indonesian government’s priorities as it prepares to evict longtime residents of a small island to make way for a $25 billion development that includes a solar panel factory and a tourism resort. The island of Rempang, part of the Riau Islands archipelago in the Malacca Strait, has been awarded […]

JAKARTA — Parts of Indonesia are covered with toxic air pollutants from burning lands and forests as this year’s fire season is intensifying amid the El Niño weather phenomenon, which brings drier conditions. The Ministry of Environment and Forestry identified 3,788 hotspots from Jan. 1 to Sept. 5 this year, a fourfold increase from 979 hotspots during […]

JAKARTA — U.S. food giant Kellogg’s is the latest major consumer brand to suspend its purchases of palm oil from Indonesian plantation giant Astra Agro Lestari, following reports of environmental and social violations. The cereal maker joins the likes of Hershey’s, PepsiCo, and Oreo maker Mondelēz in distancing itself from AAL, the second-largest palm oil […]

JAKARTA — An Indonesian court has upheld a government decision to curb the expansion of a multibillion-dollar oil palm plantation project in the country’s easternmost region of Papua. In its Sept. 9 ruling, the Jakarta State Administrative Court rejected lawsuits filed by two plantation companies that are part of the Tanah Merah mega plantation project, […]

JAKARTA — Indonesia’s move to categorize coal-fired power plants for industry as sustainable has sparked criticism from energy and finance observers, who say it goes against the scientific evidence. The country’s financial regulator, the OJK, is in the process of revising the country’s Green Taxonomy, a framework defining what kinds of investments may be considered […]

JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has recognized the rights of 15 Indigenous Dayak communities to forests on Borneo covering a combined area larger than Jakarta. The nearly 70,000 hectares (173,000 acres) is the largest cluster of customary forests ever recognized by the state. “This recognition of 15 ancestral forests in Gunung Mas district, Central Kalimantan […]

JAKARTA — Indonesia and Malaysia, the world’s top two producers of palm oil, have set up a joint task force with the European Union to address their differences over a new law making it harder for the ubiquitous commodity to enter the EU. The governments of Indonesia and Malaysia, which together account for about 85% […]

JAKARTA — Indonesia’s deal with industrialized countries for the latter to channel $20 billion in funding to help speed up the former’s energy transition is hitting a snag due to captive coal-fired power plants. Indonesia is among the world’s biggest consumers of coal, the single largest energy source of planet-heating carbon dioxide. Last year, Indonesia […]